Between Two Worlds
by Ihsan997
Summary: Decades after the fall of the Legion, a soldier of fortune finds himself torn between two comrades. Amid a renewed silithid invasion and changing factional loyalties, the love triangle fails the test of time; the clock is ticking as words are left unsaid. Warning for betrayal and character death. AU. M troll/nelf hybrid x F nelf and draenei. 25 chapters
1. The Beginning

**A/N: hello, readers! Welcome to volume two, where a half night elf, half troll from Ratchet learns a bout the world one mistake at a time. All three volumes have been finished for over a year, were edited and have been sitting around on my hard drive and online file storage. I hope you enjoy reading.**

 **As I've stated before, you DO NOT have to read the other stories for this one to make sense. Each volume is a self contained thread in and of itself, and I don't assume the reader knows any of the back stories coming in. Personally, I would be thrilled if you read all my stories, but I won't force you to. If you just want to read this one and be finished, you can do that.**

 **Oh, one more thing...this takes place in the year 67. Assuming that the Warlords of Draenor expansion took place in the year 31 of the Warcraft timeline...well, the first chapter here establishes some changes to Azeroth and its people as I imagine things would unfold. Read on!**

All along the fields, the military column marched on. Trudging through the tall grass, made vibrant by reclamation efforts, the column of at least thirty people, some riding, some flying and some walking, pressed on. Women and even a handful of men wearing the armor of the Sentinel Army led the group composed overwhelmingly of night elves, leaving a few draenei and Tauren to trail behind. Most of those at the back were irregulars, conscripted temporarily in order to support the ongoing reclamation efforts in an isolated, remote area.

A few women from the Sentinel Air Force sat almost lazily on their hippogriff a overhead. Usually quite stoic and taciturn, the riders merely shouldered their lances and bows settled in to a slow glide on the thermals rising up from below, keeping watch over nothing and looking as weary as everyone else. There were sparse trees on the northern peninsula of Azshara, not so much a result of the goblin logging operations as the general pollution that had only recently begun to recede.

At one time, the night elves had been members of the Alliance, if only temporarily. They had initially fought both the Alliance and the Horde during the Third War, picking one foreign faction over the other only due to the shock and weakness that initially accompanied the end of their immortality over forty years prior. Once the factional wars died down, the faction once known as the Sentinels withdrew from the Alliance as quickly as the Forsaken had withdrawn from the Horde, leaving a world with four factions as it had once been up until a few years after the Third War. As much as many of the Kaldorei valued the wonders and knowledge brought to them by the outside world - a society that had been immortal for so long had little knowledge of medical science, motherhood and prenatal care - there had always been boiling resentment. Joining the Alliance had led to the introduction of new germs and diseases, regulations on their traditional hunting grounds, the introduction of missionaries proselytizing on behalf of the Light and the general subordination of the needs of their people to the will of Stormwind. A few viewed the Alliance as a convenient faction to join at a time when the night elves were faced with an outside world that was new, confusing and even frightening. Others embraced the outside world fully, reveling in mortality and loving the return of the emotions that had been buried in their hearts for so many millennia. And a few reacted the opposite way, incensed that their eons-old priestesses of the moon and archdruids accepted the leadership of human kings across the ocean who generally died at an age where many Kaldorei would barely be considered old enough to drink.

All of that was in the past, though. The current serving High Priestess in Darnassus had been the one to decree the withdrawal of their people from the Alliance decades ago, and for all the criticisms against her - considered blasphemous by conservatives but always present - the reality was that her decision had borne proverbial fruit. Their fate in their own hands, the Sentinels negotiated much more aggressively with the Horde, not only pushing them to live up to the verbal promises of one of their former Warchiefs to their previous High Priestess to pull out of Ashenvale but also to return the northern peninsula of Azshara to its original owners. The southern peninsula, largely deforested and defiled, was left to the Horde both as a symbolic gesture and due to the fact that it was largely beyond saving.

It hadn't been too difficult to convince them. Their logging operations that had desecrated the Kaldorei's holy land for so long were simply moved from Nightsong Forest to southern Azshara, and their outpost on the Zoram Strand was dismantled and the materials used to storm every Alliance outpost in the Barrens, knowing that the Sentinels wouldn't lift a finger to help. Former Horde outposts north of the Barrens and southern Azshara were blessed, cleansed and grown into night elven groves one by one and although Stonetalon was still a point of contention, the Sentinels had largely cut off from the outside world save trade relations at their port cities. On the one hand, it meant that they could take what they'd learned from the outside world, adapt their society to it at their own pace and only accept further developments if they so chose. On the other hand, it also meant that the peoples of northern Kalimdor were largely left on their own when facing recurring threats from the brave new world, relying only on a scant few allies from neutral factions to supplement their ranks.

The current renewed invasion of silithids - all the way on the polar opposite end of the continent from Silithus - was a prime example of that.

The rebuilding of Nendis wasn't how it had started, but it was perhaps the most serious flash point. Once an ancient night elf port city that had survived the Sundering and the entire Long Vigil, Nendis had been burned down by one of their own. A heretical demon hunter (though weren't they all heretics?) whose name was no longer spoken had razed the city to the ground just to steal its fleet of ships, leaving ash and blood in the wake. Only now, roughly forty five years later, were the night elves in the completion process of the rebuilding of New Nendis. The harassment of the silithids, however, had become to intense that the night elven government - a theocracy backed up by a military dictatorship - finally made the decision to garrison troops there before the reconstruction had even been finished.

The population of night elves was still lower than that of other races, even after the baby boom that occurred within a few years of losing immortality. While they tended to rely on skill rather than numbers and prided themselves on the fact that a night elven huntress was roughly equal to an entire unit of Orc grunts or human footmen, they also had to face the fact that many of those older, more experienced Kaldorei were dead or dying of old age. They continued refilling their ranks with the young, as brash and unfocused as youth of any other race, and had to resort to supplemental irregulars from mercenary camps or enlistment booths.

Which was how the biracial young man radiating voodoo found himself and his paladin companion walking among the other irregulars in the first place.

"So your mom is the second type of night elf, I take it?"

"Huh?"

So enamored had the young man been in their rehashing of the state of world affairs that he hadn't even realized he'd been engaged in an outer dialogue rather than an inner monologue. His long, indigo mane, most often teased up into a Mohawk, had been tied back into a very loose ponytail; when among his mother's people, he always tried his best not to stand out considering how much they valued conformity. The fact that he had tusks already made him stand out enough; they were smaller than those of his father's people, but still enough to make him look different enough. But as he turned to look down at the draenei female walking by his side, the rubber band he'd used became even looser and the indigo wave spilled out over his shoulders. Long hair was the norm in night elven society, but it had to be tied back during war. They hadn't encountered any silithids since they'd left the Darnassian Base Camp a day ago, but one of the sentinels riding on her sabre next to them sent him a sharp look signaling for him to keep up appearances anyway.

Redoing the ponytail helped the mixed man to focus a little more on the world outside his head than inside. He wasn't given to daydreaming the way his parents did, but the long talks Zhenya would often thrust upon him had a tendency to make him feel a little light headed.

"So your mom is the second type of night elf, I take it?" she repeated, an odd habit of hers that she didn't seem to realize seemed odd.

"The second type?" Navarion asked, experiencing difficulty remembering all they had said.

"She's the type that embraced the outer world and all it offered, I take it?"

It clicked, and Navarion shook the stars from his eyes while nodding. His silver eyes glowed as brightly as those of any pureblooded night elf, and the light of the sun interfered with his vision. Zhenya's gold eyes evolved in an entirely different solar system; she never complained about the sun and didn't seem to have difficulty seeing at all. Though it was hard to tell considering the construction of her helmet: her ears, hair and even her neck tendrils were completely encased in the gold colored metal; all he could see were her horns and, vaguely, her eyes.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that. I mean, mom never talked about how she left the army that much. Just bits and pieces about how she and auntie Irien-"

"Irien isn't your aunt. She's your legal godmother."

"I know what she is; she's my godmother. Can I continue to answer your question?" When she didn't reply, he started to talk again. "Mom never talks much about how she left. She and Irien met at Booty Bay and worked security on goblin ships. They had to deal with all different kinds of people, so they both learned to value other cultures fast."

"Plus she married your dad."

For a second, he almost reached up and fingered the end of one of his tusks, a habit he'd inherited from his father. "Yes, obviously, their marriage wasn't conventional. Though they did meet each other under...unique circumstances," he hummed quietly, deep in thought about his own origins. "Come to think of it, they never have told us the full story. Just that they went to hell and back to find each other."

"They're probably overdramatizing things," she replied, snorting at his indignant reaction to her words.

"You're free to whatever sort of delusions you want regarding people you don't even know. But my mom is a free spirit and one who lives in the moment seeing as how, as auntie Irien always says, the moment that we're born, we start dying. My mom really believes in that."

"She sounds a lot like me, then."

He bristled, ironically just as they stepped over some actual bristles growing from a short bush. "Eew. Seriously, don't talk like that."

"What, you don't notice the similarities?" she asked, completely oblivious to how much the comment disturbed him.

"I kind of don't want to."

"Your mother is twelve thousand years old, from the third generation of night elves," she explained, raising a dainty, limp wrist and ticking imaginary check marks in the air as they marched. "I'm twenty thousand years old which is almost like the same thing."

"Except your ID card from the Exodar says you're only three hundred and something. And I kind of just don't believe you."

She waved her hand at him dismissively without even glancing at him. "Denial is the first step to recovery. Anyway, she seems to have embraced the world outside what she once knew, and so have I."

"Your people crash landed in a space boat...thing. You kind of didn't have a choice."

"You're racist."

At that comment, he laughed out loud, sincerely finding her reactions as comical as the day he'd met her. She continued to stare at him through the two eyeholes of her mask-like helmet, her expression unreadable.

"Space goat is an extremely offensive term."

"I said space boat, not space G-word," he reassured her. When he tried to put his arm around her shoulder, she pulled away, more from her general habits than actually giving a damn about the sabre rider glaring at them.

They marched on for a few more moments before she started at it again. "Your mom is the riding trainer in Ratchet. I'm an excellent rider."

"You fell off your elekk when we helped to finally cleanse Blackfathom Deeps," he reminded her.

"I don't remember that."

Laughing once more at both her own denial and her moving away again when he tried to hold her close, he tried to figure out of she was intentionally trying to be funny or not. She was a very difficult person to figure out, even after a few months performing mercenary work for the Sentinel Army in the same unit. "I remember it quite well," he joked, marveling at how she tried to march faster only to find that the glaive thrower being towed in front of them prevented her escape. "It trampled a puddle that turned out to be one of those little underwater sinkhole things where the mud and water shoots up out of the ground, and when it tripped you fell in it."

"No."

"And the mud somehow managed to get into your helmet and you claimed you didn't notice, and it soaked in your hair."

An angry look in her eyes, she turned to him for a moment and showed that she considered the exchange to me more than him simply poking fun at her. "You sulk alone for hours when people don't remember your name."

And just like that, she stung him again, catching him by surprise as always. Her temper always flared up when he least expected it, and rather than shout or curse, Zhenya had a tendency to say much more hurtful things - often when somebody was only trying to have fun with her. They stared at each other for a few seconds before they continued marching. The silence settled in between them, the night elf disciplinarian spurred her sabre forward and began glaring at a few enlisted recruits who had undone their ponytails and started to compare nail polish colors.

"I'm sorry. It was uncalled for."

Navarion craned his neck over surreptitiously to get a good look at her, remembering once he did that her expression remained hidden from him. Her voice sounded sincere enough, but she was a master of concealed intentions. He'd served alongside her long enough to know that. Regardless, he patted her on the shoulder to acknowledge his acceptance of her apology, and this time she didn't pull away.

Not too far ahead, the hills just before the coastline popped up over the horizon. The outer stone walls of New Nendis lined the tops, very near to completion. They'd heard that reconstruction inside the city proper had a ways to go; if they pushed so hard for fortifications first, then the silithids attacks truly must have been bad. As was the case with most night elven settlements, forests had begun to sprout up in the area. All along the bottom of the foothills, huge trees smaller than Ashenvale purplewoods but growing more closely together formed a sort of natural barrier against the pollution blowing up from the southern peninsula. Natural grown footpaths paved with cobblestones conjured out from the soil via non arcane nature magic provided a way for the glaive throwers they accompanied, and wisps patrolled the roads lest any of the insectoid antagonists be foolish enough to penetrate wooded areas inhabited by the fabled children of the stars.

The entire column quieted down as they entered the forests forming a protective ring around the port city. Navarion had spent quite a bit of time in the historical homeland of his mother, but trips through woodlands marked as theirs never grew old. The entire aura of the place was serene, and the air pressure increased once they passed beneath the canopy. A darkness that contrasted to the sunlight outside bathed the entire place, accentuated by the wisps floating around like effervescent dust motes. Even the shuffling of the heavy armor of the infantrywomen leading the column decreased in volume, creating no echoes as the column marched on.

At the sight of a moonwell between the trees, Zhenya buried forward to pester the sabre rider.

"Captain Soraya, permission to stop for a blessing from the well?" the paladin asked politely.

Soraya continued to keep her sabre's pace at a slow trot, staring straight ahead and not showing any reaction to the request at first. Being the master of staring contests, however, Zhenya kept in step and continued to stare at the stoic squad captain. After some time, Soraya answered. "Hearthglen, go keep an eye on her," Soraya barked at Navarion, using his last name. "Neither of you let the other dawdle too long."

"Thank you," Zhenya droned in a tone as flat as that of most of the sentinels. She promptly took a diagonal curve off the paved road, grabbing Navarion by the arm when she was sure nobody was looking.

The properly enlisted soldiers in the night elf military bore a general resentment toward the irregulars, viewing them as underpaid mercenaries holding no true loyalties. No opportunities were missed to make them feel they were being monitored, even if that meant turning them against each other, and Navarion and Zhenya had both ratted each other out enough times such that Soraya knew they could not so much be trusted to uphold the law as to race to tattle on one another.

Navarion followed Zhenya off the main road and between the dense trees, squeezing his big half troll body through where necessary. The clopping of Zhenya's hooves ceased once they were no longer walking on moonstones, and the general silence overtook them again until they had reached the moonwell itself. The column continued to march until all twenty eight or twenty nine of the others dropped out of sight, leaving the pair under the watch of the wisps.

Tired from the trip, she set her large war hammer against a tree. Before even telling him how long she would take, she already removed her helmet, letting her long, neon yellow hair with hot pink streaks loose from its bun. She'd been dyeing her hair since they'd met and he actually wondered what her real hair color was; asking her, of course, would only yield answers that were probably lies, just like half of everything else she told him. She'd once actually told him she could warp like a warp stalker and became heated when he refused to believe she was being serious. When he offered to pay her five hundred gold pieces of she proved her claim, she went back to the tent for female recruits and didn't speak to him for half a day.

She seemed almost irreverent this time, however. Not even paying attention to where her gear fell, she removed her shoulder pauldrons and let them fall to the soft underbrush next to her helmet. Not wanting to behave like a creeper, he turned around and gave his back to her, keeping watch in case anybody else happened to be spying upon them blessing themselves in the holy water, having a drink and stretching out of their armor for a few minutes.

"This is supposed to be a big assignment," he marveled out loud, not finding anything else better to do. "This new port is supposed to really-"

"It's a good plan," she replied, interrupting him. And then she fell silent, sounding as if she were fiddling with her armlets.

Not knowing if she just didn't want to talk, he continued. "You know, I handled a job just like this one for the private sector, about eleven years ago."

"Interesting."

"It was way over in Lordaeron, on the other side of the ocea-"

"I don't believe you, but please go on."

For a split second, he grit his teeth. As loyal a companion as she had been to him, there was a reason why they had difficulties getting along. As immature as it might sound, he blamed most of that on her. The fact that she was taking so long washing up and refreshing herself at the moonwell was something he knew was not only intentional, but also intended to bother him. It came almost as second nature to her, and yet they functioned so perfectly as a team.

But he wouldn't let her know she had succeeded in annoying him.

"Well anyway, it was at Raventusk City, way out on the east coast of the Hinterlands."

"Never heard of it."

"Anyway, excuse me, I was with the Steamwheedle Cartel at the time. We were hired to help construct a port and track down some bandits who were stealing the construction materials."

"That isn't like this at all," she replied while fiddling around with an article of clothing.

He loosened up while staring out into the woods, amazed at how the woman managed to simultaneously both infuriate and intrigue him merely be being herself, or at least the closest thing to her real self that might exist. "How so?"

"You were working for a private organization before, and now you're serving in a military." He could almost see her striking at the air while talking. "Also last time you were involved in protecting the operation itself, and now you're just here to supplement the barracks at the city garrison."

"I'm still working for a fixed period."

"But you're not on a contract basis where you can buy your way out if you want to," she retorted.

"It's still a fixed period."

"Don't copy me. Also, you're working among night elves this time. Your job at Raventusk was among forest trolls."

His eyes grew wide when he realized he'd caught her in another lie. "You claimed that you've never heard of Raventusk-"

"That didn't happen."

"Beg your pardon?"

"What you're claiming I said. That never happened."

Just as he was about to lay into her only half seriously, he heard the familiar click of her chastity belt. Many of the paladin orders began doling them out to recruits of both genders in order to enforce many of the vows their members broke while on tours of duty, but as someone like Zhenya would be expected to do, she had found a way to pick the lock using only her fingernails. Navarion could hear her heavier breathing behind him and nothing else as she sounded like she was holding still.

He turned around, seeing her light azure skin shimmer and reflect the light of the moonwell, as naked as the day she was born.

"Are you coming or what?" she asked expectantly. She almost appeared surprised that he was just standing there ogling her.

Sighing heavily, he removed his gauntlets and bracers, the two armor pieces attached to one another. She took that as her answer, and almost in celebration of the blasphemy she enjoyed waving up in his face, she slid into the moonwell. Nervous excitement mixed with fear that Soraya might catch them and report them, but they'd gone through the motions enough times to know when they were being watched.

If she'd continue her erratic behavior, he thought as he removed his armor, then it would be a long few months indeed.


	2. Nendis Reborn

When they had told him that New Nendis was under construction, he thought, they hadn't explained half of it.

Navarion and Zhenya walked into the city proper after having been allowed through the high stone walls. The fortifications were the most developed, impressive structures in the city, showing once again that the Sentinels as a faction were a military dictatorship at the root of it, supported by a theocracy at the top. Armored warrior women stood watch everywhere, and even those night elves dressed in plain clothes walked as if they were merely off duty soldiers. One could always tell.

Large patches of green areas and woodlands within the city walls themselves dotted the landscape, providing for a high amount of natural beauty within an urban setting. Even in the supposedly unfinished settlement, the sheer splendor of the surroundings surpassed that of any of the Alliance or Horde cities Navarion had visited. The construction he'd heard of was simply the natural growing up buildings under the direction of priestesses and Druids, just like his family's estate back in Ratchet had risen. Rather than building wide structures, the night elves tended to raise tall ones, growing hollowed out trees connected by winding ramps and vine bridges above the ground in order to save square miles of the city proper. A sort of canopy formed above the once ruined highborn city, vaguely resembling an open air version of Darnassus. Were it not for the wandering treants, looming archers hiding in porticos grown out of the high trees and the hippogriff riders patrolling above, one would not be able to guess that the serene place waited for an invasion from a sentient race of insectoid beings at any given moment.

The duo walked down the main road a little longer, soaking in the seemingly peaceful atmosphere before Soraya found them.

"You!" the disgruntled sentinel captain growled while pointing a clawed finger at them both. "What the fel took you so long!"

The question was simple enough, and formulating some sort to tell her should have been easy. Given the delicate nature, however, Navarion didn't want to give Zhenya time to answer lest she blurt out what they had actually been doing. 'Desecration of a moonwell of the White Lady while fulfilling our carnal desires' would be a quick way to get them both thrown into the brig.

"We thought we had heard a noise, so we lied low until we were sure it had just been cicadas." Straight faced and serious, he worked his acting skills to the best of his ability to pull that one off.

Soraya eyed them both suspiciously. Such was her scrutiny that even some Kaldorei passing by broke their societal rules of minding one's own business to scope out the captain glowering at two mercenaries for hire. The excuse worked, however; the actual sentinels held irregulars in such low regard that the bumbling behavior he'd described sounded believable to most of them.

"Get to the barracks, just go get to your bunks," she grunted while pointing roughly toward a series of massive trees ringed by a high, living fence of wood; the drill yard could be viewed just beyond the gap marking the entrance. "Unpack and meet at the huntress lodge in half an hour. You and the other sellswords will be briefed on the details of your assignments there."

"Thank you, captain," Navarion answered for them while pulling Zhenya away. There was no reason to give her a chance to get them in trouble.

They ambled down the road, passing beneath the many vine bridges and tree houses above while politely moving past the number of Kaldorei daywalkers in addition to some foreign visitors and merchants. Switching into a more serious mood, Zhenya vented as they approached the quarter reserved for military matters.

"I am not a sellsword," she huffed. "I came here to help these people and the world at large prevent another threat from the silithids."

"Just keep walking, she's still watching us and our ears are a lot more sensitive than yours."

"How do you know she's watching us? She might have gone back to whatever activity such a bitter person wastes her time on."

"Voodoo," he replied while raising his index finger into the air. "I can sense life and death. And I can roughly tell which direction a person is facing and what they're holding."

"She's holding bitterness," Zhenya grumbled, eliciting another laugh from Navarion as they passed the high wooden walls and entered the area quartering troops.

Several ageing ancients of war had long ago settled their roots into the soil, perhaps having survived the initial razing of Old Nendis in the aftermath of the Third War. Their trunks had grown tall and hollow, and inside the open entrances the bunks of numerous sentinels could be seen. It was almost a little overwhelming; there were so many bunks, beds and hammocks visible yet no demarcation of who slept where. All elves were meticulous about such things, and wandering to any empty space to set down their bags wouldn't endear them to anybody.

"Are you two lost?" asked one of two vindicators standing just off the main paved road, a male and a female. Their armor didn't cover as much as Zhenya's, but the gold tint mixed in with light purple crystals was the same.

Glad to accept the possible help, Navarion stepped off the main road to allow others to pass while they conversed with the two strangers. "Yes, we're looking for the quarters for the irregulars, actually."

The female nodded to him, having already known just by their appearance. "We're just waiting for the meeting at the huntress lodge back near the front walls of the city. We can show you both where to leave your belongings."

"Oh, that would help out a ton, wouldn't it?" Navarion asked Zhenya. Her helmet back on, it was impossible to know just why she didn't respond, but the curious stares of the two other draenei indicated that it wasn't a cultural thing so much as a Zhenya thing.

"Oh...we're happy to oblige," the male vindicator said awkwardly while stepping back out to the main road. "I'm Dmitri, by the way. This is Tammie."

"Hi!"

"Hey, nice to meet you both," Navarion replied. "I don't want to keep you guys waiting..."

"It's not a problem at all," Tammie chirped, displaying a much more upbeat demeanor than Zhenya as she took the more stoic of the two women by the arm. "All of us irregulars are treated rather poorly, so sticking together is the only way for us to have any semblance of a social life." She dragged Zhenya along toward the last sets of barracks at the end; one had women milling about inside while the other had men. "You can just drop your bags off here."

Tammie continued dragging Zhenya into the tall, hollowed out tree that served as the quarters for female irregular soldiers, attempting to coax some sort of conversation out of the paladin for some time. Dmitri stepped around a surprisingly short furbolg conscript as the two men entered the male irregular's ancient.

Inside, numerous bunks grown from large clovers lined the walls, every person having a large webbing of vines growing directly above for storing armor, bags and containers. The ceilings were low for a night elven structure, and Navarion was a little closer to the height of a jungle troll, thus forcing him to hunch over like one while passing by other fighters for hire on the first floor. As if he knew where they needed to go, Dmitri walked right up the winding ramp that jutted out from the back exit and would d around the outside of the tree, leading Navarion up to the fourth floor. Much to his surprise, there were a number of night elven irregulars, most of them probably with stories to tell of why they wanted to fight but weren't regular enlisted members of the Kaldorei military.

Once inside the narrow fourth floor, Dmitri sat on a bunk Navarion assumed was his in order to make space; there were only four bunks at that level and a circular table in the middle, and the space seemed cramped to the point where it would only be sufficient for sleeping.

"The one directly behind you is unclaimed; that's why the bunch of berries growing from the storage vines are uneaten."

Not finding the space to turn around without swinging his backpack and knocking over a serious looking chess match on the table, Navarion found himself forced to sit back as well. The clover leaf forming the bed was far more comfortable than barrack amenities he'd stayed at elsewhere, and the fibre tissues were strong enough to support his weight. All things considered, it wasn't a terrible situation to be in, having signed up on short notice for a job cleaning out insectoid invaders in a remote location still unconnected to the world.

Dmitri appeared content to just sit in the bunk for a bit, greeting a rather quiet, subdued highborn Mage who entered only long enough to return the greeting to them both, not ask who Navarion even was and set down his bag in his bunk before walking right back out. The two of them rested their feet for a minute and Navarion could tell that Dmitri had probably been on a long march to get there as well.

"Did you pass through the Darnassian Base Camp?" the vindicator asked him while inspecting his own hooves.

"That we did, though I'm not entirely sure if it could be called a base camp. The place was huge."

Although he remained focused on a part of his hoof that looked like it needed to be filed, Dmitri's voice indicated that he was listening and alert. "I know, right? It's like a pioneer fortress in and of itself. I almost wish I could have just stayed there."

"It definitely had nice amenities," Navarion conceded.

"And to be honest, I kind of feel like the lower number of military troops there made the place a little friendlier," Dmitri added while looking up for a second, as if to emphasize the point.

"How so?"

"Well, you know how it is. The Sentinels pride themselves on their unparalleled combat skills and battlefield tactics, the way the Horde takes pride in brute strength and the Alliance takes pride in technology. So they see themselves as this ultra elite force that values every soldier, and the only thing they lack is canon fodder."

A smirk broke out across Navarion's face. "That's a recent attitude. A result of viewing how much of a threat the younger, less wise, supposedly less skilled races pose. It's fear masked by haughtiness."

Not knowing what else to say, Dmitri hunkered down and relaxed into his bunk. "I guess that sounds possible, what after all the factional wars and double crosses at all."

Interest piqued by the comment, Navarion scanned his new friend's heavy armor, noticing that there weren't any insignias for any faction. "You're still technically a member of the Alliance, though, right?" he asked.

"That would be correct," Dmitri replied unapologetically. "Most of our people are, due to the religious and cultural similarities to the humans, dwarves and high elves. Even if we're from different planets so much of what we believe is the same."

"Of course, and the factional association makes sense in that case. But how do you adjust out here? After the Sentinels struck out as their own faction, they left the Alliance high and dry as they lost their footholds in the Barrens."

"Well, I'd take issue with the wording there," Dmitri countered politely. His eyes, the same shade of gold as Zhenya's lit up at the topic despite the man's weariness as he sank into his bunk. "The military junta that rules these lands - I don't know if the Kaldorei like to be called a country, so we'll just say these lands - did ditch the Alliance and leave those Barrens outposts to the Horde. But just as the Orcish grunts who overran those outposts don't represent all Orcs, the dictators who decided not to involve the night elven government at all don't represent all night elves."

"You sound like my dad," Navarion chuckled while adjusting his bags in the vine hammock above his bed.

"Your dad sounds smart. And I can tell from looking at you that your mom and dad both must dislike stereotyping, give how different they must be."

"Half Kaldorei, half Darkspear," the young man said while thumbing himself, providing an explanation. "They all live in Ratchet now."

"Ratchet, huh. That's not a bad place. There is something alluring about the thought of different types of people all living together in peace."

While they talked, Navarion removed his gauntlet-bracer combination and stored it above his bunk. His melee weapon, a spring loaded sickle blade that remained attached to his right bracer, couldn't be removed, and thus he left his forearms bare up to the elbow while keeping the rest of his armor on. Upon the removal of his holster for storage, Dmitri leaned forward.

"That's one of those guns they call a pistol, right? I hear those are dangerous if you keep them at home."

Used to the question, Navarion unloaded the ammunition before putting the weapon away. "Only if they're not stored properly. Otherwise, they're mostly harmless."

"Logically speaking..." The vindicator hummed to himself for a moment, apparently giving it some serious thought. "I guess it's no more dangerous than keeping swords and maces in the house, but there's something different about guns. Psychological, almost."

"The noise they create?"

"That, and the speed at which they can hit a target. It isn't any more violent than a traditional weapon, but it just feels more violent. But in a sort of...I don't want to say negative-"

"Say negative," Navarion said, opening his arms. "I don't ask people to censor themselves."

Dmitri sat for a few seconds longer, unsatisfied by the term. "Hmm...I just don't prefer them, is all. I think that's the fairest way to put it."

Just then, the highborne Mage from earlier knocked and walked in, trying to remain formal and distant as their kind often did while seeking to tell them something. "A large number of our fellow irregulars have gathered at the huntress lodge near the front. They might start the meeting early."

A pained look on his face, Dmitri twisted his back as much as his armor would allow and a loud pop could be heard. "I guess we ought to head over there, then."

"Where you guys, lead, I'll follow. I'm just glad that..." Navarion turned to see the Mage walking out without them, not even waiting to hear him thank them both before leaving. "Er, I'm glad we bumped into you, actually," he directed toward Dmitri as the two of them laughed at the night elf mage's behavior.

"No, it's not a problem at all. We'll both be glad for the company." The two of them walked out of their room and descended the ramp that wound its way around the hollow ancient, watching at least two dozen other irregulars wearing non-matching sets of armor congregated outside the lodge below. "As you might already know, we don't receive the amount of respect as the enlistees. We aren't bound by signature, but our pay is lower than one would expect and the jobs we're given hold lower honor in elven society."

Navarion glanced around, concerned that Dmitri's voice might be heard; elves in general not only had sensitive ears but also had a tendency to listen in on conversations, especially in a military dictatorship like the Sentinels. "Yes, Zhenya and I have experienced that firsthand. There's a lot of corpse cleanup, supply caravan protection and simple boring patrol work."

"To be honest, I'd almost prefer the boring patrol work," Dmitri chuckled once they reached the ground below. "I guess we'll hear officially during this briefing, but the rumors about this new silithids invasion don't sound very good."

The two of them looked for Zhenya and Tammie, finding the last few other irregulars having gone to the lodge already. A few properly enlisted sentinel soldiers walked by, both of the giant women as tall as Dmitri. They actually bumped into Navarion as they walked by despite having clearly seen him, not even apologizing as they did. He turned to see what their problem was and found a bizarre mixture of resentment and flirtation on their faces that he had experienced from the female soldiers during his time as a mercenary. Like Zhenya, he often found their attitude toward him maddening in its confusion, and much preferred the males - a combination of Druids and even a surprising number of warriors - who merely refused to acknowledge him. Or, better yet, to just not wear his armor and have them assume him to be a civilian or independent adventurer, in which case they were as cordial and polite as one usually expected elves to be. As a hired solider of fortune, the members of the Sentinel military proper became downright unpleasant toward him.

"Just ignore it; remember where you are," Dmitri reminded him as they joined the rest of the irregulars filing into the huntress lodge.

"I wasn't going to say anything. I learned that lesson the hard way."

Dmitri smirked, and Navarion already found the man to feel like a close companion even after having spoken to him for only a few minutes. "You and me both," the draenei chortled.

There were more than twice as many irregulars in the hall as there had been both irregulars and soldiers proper in the column Navarion and Zhenya had marched in from the Darnassian Base Camp. Tauren, furbolgs, draenei, two worgen, and an absolutely monstrous dark troll from the once nearly extinct Shadowtooth tribe milled about, chatting most in Common amongst themselves. Most striking, however, were two things: the apparently reformed satyr fraternizing as if it were completely normal for him to be there, and the fact that half of the irregular were night elves. The half elf had noticed it before, but why native born, pureblooded Kaldorei joined the anti-silithid campaign as mercenaries rather than regular recruits baffled him. The fact that they mostly spoke Common even to each other instead of Darnassian baffled him even more.

Several uniformed sentinels stood at the front of the hall, whispering among themselves while pushing a board bearing a large map of the region in front of the irregulars. Nobody seemed ready to quiet down until another sentinel stepped in front. There was no need for introductions or names; the moment she stood at the front, everybody fell silent and many of them even started to sit on the floor, the general habit of mercenaries during briefings; proper soldiers in the Sentinel military were allowed to stand.

Her armor, shining elven steel and silver strapped on by leather, didn't clink or creak once as she walked slowly to the front where she could best be seen. Her movements were slow and while it wasn't likely that any of the pre immortality generations like Navarion's mother were in active military service - Cecilia Hearthglen herself had been arguably one of the most skilled warriors on Azeroth but had already hung up her glaive for good - the woman's age was still apparent. Likely born around the time of the War of the Satyr, the young man surmised based on the elegance mixed with solemnity in her body language as well as the fact that, like his mother, most of the woman's originally blue hair had faded to a combination of silver and grey strands. She practically radiated a strength of command without even trying, and there wasn't even the need for anybody to say 'shush' when she took the stage.

Ancient silver eyes flitted over the mostly seated irregulars, inspecting them one by one in silence and not looking to be in any sort of a hurry. Immediately, Navarion felt a warm sense of comfort wash over him as if he were in the presence of his mother once more. The facial features were different enough that he could tell the woman wasn't kin to his mother; night elves had low genetic diversity due to their population bottleneck at the Sundering, and the obvious difference in appearance meant this commander definitely wasn't some long lost aunt or something. Regardless, he felt like he was in the company of family even if some of the other mercenaries appeared to be intimidated by the woman.

After waiting for a moment, she spoke in a voice that carried throughout the lodge despite her not raising it. "Stand up," she ordered flatly but not rudely in her accented Common.

Much to the surprise of Soraya - who stood just behind the commander - the mercenaries all stood up, just as the two other sentinels standing off to the sides were. Symbolic but monumental considering the hierarchical culture they were in.

"On behalf of the Sentinel Army, I, Commander Lamia, greet you all; ishnu alah," the commander said, nodding her head only slightly as the majority of the mercenaries bowed. From the middle of a tightly packed group of night elf mercenary women to the left, Navarion noticed a thistle colored ponytail rotating as if someone were looking around a little too much. "You have all accepted a noble assignment, and for your service you will be paid in cash, and more importantly, in honor among our people."

A combination of disbelief and trusting relief passed over the crowd of unenlisted troops. Soraya's near-gape at the comment echoed the sentiments of some who had grown used to scorn from the military. Others, not just Navarion but even others he could sense by his voodoo, felt a sensation of gratitude at the words from the seemingly honest commander. It was certainly a different reception than the one he'd received from the captain standing just behind the commander.

"Let me dispel any rumors here and now: we are experiencing a flare up up silithids encounters. The good news is that we've already explored the deepest of their caverns via the aid of the good Druids viewing the developments from the side of the Emerald Dream, and I can tell you that the claims of the silithids having burrowed into the planet's crust and tunneled all the way from Silithus are false. This is a localized infestation." A collective sigh of relief escaped from the crowd of mercenaries and even the two sentinels monitoring at either side. No murmurs, however; were Soraya the one to speak there might be, but Lamia's nature almost seemed to control the crowd. "The other good news is that we have not detected any qiraji; in the absence of intelligent life forms among the insects, the drones and fighters are largely without direction or organization. The dozen or so hives that have sprouted up are not functioning in coordination with one another. This city's defenses are complete, our military is strong, and with your assistance we will wipe out this infestation one hive at a time so that the good people of Kalimdor might rebuild New Nendis."

Rather than asking for questions, Lamia let her lip hang open slightly as she raised her chin into the air and inspected all the irregulars once more. In a culture so concerned about saving face, the elves were unlikely to say anything, but one of the Tauren, an older brave with light brown fur, raised his hand.

"Is it accurate that we'll be assigned to units of regular soldiers, Commander Lamia?"

"An excellent question. Yes, that news is accurate; as part of the current eradication efforts, irregulars will be integrated into units of regular soldiers. We'll use the honor system to discern your talents and then assign you to an appropriate unit of troops accordingly; the recruitment tables are being set up outside as we speak." The commander tilted her chin up again, searching for more questions.

At first, nobody else seemed as brave as the brave and hands were held at sides. Seeing no reason to let everyone wait anxiously, Navarion raised his hand next.

"Has a schedule been posted, commander?" the half elf asked, ignoring the stares from the furbolgs, the confused dark troll trying to figure out Navarion's roots and someone with thistle colored hair.

"Indeed it has. You may find the schedule outside the ring formed by the ancients of sustenance where rations are distributed; the schedule is the same for both regulars and irregulars."

The first two questions spurred others on, and one by one the mercenaries became a little less shy. Payroll, duration of assignments, break times and chain of command were all discussed, and Lamia handled the questions professionally and swiftly, seeming to have memorized the entire Sentinel military law book. By the time the group had been exhausted of questions, everyone seemed a little more upbeat after the reception by the more respectful commander.

When nobody else asked anything, Lamia adjourned the meeting and the majority of the irregulars filed out to reach the front of the lines for receiving assignments. Viewing the mad rush as quaint, Navarion stepped off to one side and waited for more people to file out. Dmitri noticed him standing away and stood next to him briefly.

"You know, if you wait to the end you might not end up in the more desirable positions," the vindicator warned him humorously.

"I'll take my chances. Every job has to be performed for the greater good anyway, right?" the half elf asked.

Dmitri smiled and laughed, and the sound was quite good natured and humble. "If you change you're mind, I'll let you cut in front. Be careful what you wish for."

"Now you're making me a bit worried!" Navarion joked right back, sharing another laugh with the jolly draenei as he hung back in the lodge.

There were scant people left inside, and he tried to scan the crowd for any sign of Zhenya or Tammie, finding neither. Although he had never really suffered from the social awkwardness of his father, Navarion still found himself feeling a bit alone as everyone either filed out or crowded around Lamia for more direct questions. Just as he was about to step away, the color of thistle caught his eye again.

Off to the side, an elf was looking in his direction. Elves of all varieties tended to view people who looked around too much as simpletons or younglings, and he wondered if the night elven irregulars were mostly people from his generation. A periwinkle colored face to match came into his peripheral vision as he started to walk out, only to turn back to Commander Lamia when he looked in the direction. Met only with a thistle ponytail, he mumbled about the strange looks his biracial appearance occasionally earned from full blooded elves and trolls and wandered out.

And speaking of the other side of his heritage, he found himself face to face with a large, black object the color of obsidian as soon as he walked out. One second later and he realized is was the dark troll berserker from inside. The man shouldered a femur bone from a kodo like a club the way Navarion's father occasionally did, except this man - from the most primitive tribe of Azeroth's most primitive races other than silithids and troggs - stood even larger than Khujand Hearthglen, maybe even ten feet tall.

The man's naturally neon green mane stood out against his obsidian hide, drawing attention away from his gaze. "What you be?" the berserker asked in Zandali, apparently not even fluent in his own mother tongue.

Zandali was not Navarion's mother tongue, however, and even though he understood the language perfectly, he answered in Common since the Shadowtooth obviously understood. "My father is Darkspear," Navarion replied. "Jungle troll."

"Shatterspear?" the berserker asked, a reference to the rare tribe of jungle trolls that had survived on Kalimdor after the Sundering.

"No, Darkspear. From...across the ocean," Navarion tried to explain, not sure if the dark troll had ever heard of Stranglethorn Vale.

The veritable giant looked down at him curiously, not seeming to understand. "Same-same Shatterspear?" the berserker asked in Low Common.

After considering whether or not he wanted to give a minor history lesson, Navarion settled for the partially inaccurate answer. "Same-same," he replied while trying to sneak a peek around the man to see the dwindling lines at the movable grown tables just beyond the entrance ramp. "Navarion, by the way."

The berserker looked down at him curiously, likely perplexed at the elven name for the biracial man who, in his berserker mind, just looked like a silver eyes troll. "Rangar," the dark troll berserker replied while pointing at himself.

The two of them approached the single assignment table that still had an officer waiting and to Navarion's surprise, it was a man. Even though the traditionally defined gender roles of night elves had been bent after the Third War, it was still generally understood that while many women excelled as druidesses, very few men could advance in the ranks of the soldiers and the priesthood; the mysogyny of the Alliance military was often said to be only marginally stronger than the mysandry of the ranks of the Sentinels.

Once the group of night elves and furbolgs in front of them had finished, the troll and the half troll stepped forward. The male night elf officer wore the same silver and steel armor without a helmet that the women all wore, and his slow movement indicated a great age; given the lack of Druidic magic on him, he likely had been a barrow den guard or some sort of administrative worker during the Long Vigil. Rather than letting his hair run wild as the majority of night elf men (overwhelmingly Druids) tended to do, he had his dark green locks tied back in a ponytail like the women. Not a hint of irony felt Navarion as he forgot that he also had a ponytail, and was half Kaldorei, yet gaped at the hairstyle of the Kaldorei man seated in front of him.

"Name, origin and talents," the humorless officer boomed in accented Common. His voice was so deep that he almost sounded like an Orc.

The berserker had been standing further forward, and so answered first. "Rangar from Shadowtooth. I berserker-"

"Commander Lamia's retinue," the officer boomed once more, cutting Rangar off. At the sight of the dark troll furrowing his heavy hairless brow in confusion at the word retinue, the officer grumbled and tried to use clearer language. "The commander already had you marked for guard duty. The silithids are just intelligent enough to go after commanders first and she requires someone big, scary and eye catching to stand next to her as a meat shield."

"You protect the commander," Navarion whispered to the still confused pureblooded troll in Zandali.

"I meat shield!" Rangar cackled while saluting, then promptly bound off to goddess knows where.

The officer had already begun inspecting Navarion, and the half elf, half troll realized that he didn't have any weapons and probably looked rather useless to most people. However, he wasn't facing most people, and the officer possessed a similar sense for magic that most night elves did. Voodoo was generally considered necromancy by most Kaldorei and even the three tribes of trolls who had joined the Horde - one of the main ideological reasons why Navarion's father had left the faction - but it was also highly effective in combat. Given that the Sentinels were resorting to supplemental forces for their military, they didn't really have the leisure to pick and choose.

"Shadow hunter?" the officer asked brusquely, referring to the class of healer-warriors that Navarion's father and non-Horde trolls relied on as the lore keepers.

"Yes sir," he replied proudly, beaming when he realized that the term wasn't used scornfully. "I can heal, use an ensnaring ward, am immune to status ailments and psychological effects, and-"

"Western wall unit, night shift," the officer said dismissively while scribbling something on his pad without even asking for Navarion's personal details.

"I'm sorry, sir?"

"You patrol the western wall during the night shift. Start at the northwestern patrol tower at dusk from the day after tomorrow." The man was apparently scribbling down the information he'd just stated; when he looked back up, he switched the conversation to Darnassian. "Half Shatterspear?"

Frowning at the officer's lack of concern for his skills, Navarion avoided open insubordination and forced as polite a tone of voice as he could in his mother's language. "Navarion Hearthglen, sir. Kaldorei mother from Suramar, Darkspear father but not a member of the Horde."

Surprised by the revelation, the officer actually paused before completing his list. "Suramar...that's pre-Sundering. May Elune bless your family." The prayer was brief but said in as much sincerity as the taciturn man could probably muster that it did redeem him somewhat, in Navarion's eyes. When the man finished jotting everything down, the logical disconnect clicked in the shadow hunter's head.

"Sir, what is the assignment for tomorrow, sir?"

At the sound of the question, the officer pursed his lips roughly into what he probably thought was a smile and gazed at the younger man as if he were bestowing a great honor upon him. "The port hasn't been built yet because it's been infested by a species of silithid that sprays enemies with a horrible smelling gas. It doesn't actually hurt, it just smells like death. You're the last to sign up, so you get to accompany the strike unit to take them out and clean up afterward."

Unable to feign any sort of gratitude, Navarion fingered the end of one of his tusks while closing his eyes. "Thank you, officer," he mumbled, forcing himself to show proper official respect even as the man continued to do that taciturn smile thing.

When the officer returned to his paperwork without saying a word more, Navarion took a step back to survey his surroundings. The majority of the irregulars had either gone to the food distribution center or wandered out of the military quarter, and there were only a handful of night elves and a Tauren hanging about chatting. A few regular enlisted soliders walked by in opposite directions on the main road, and the seren quiet of the elven city felt monotonous without anybody to talk to. Navarion turned around, trying to see if he could find Dmitri or Tammie but saw the heavily armored vindicators nowhere. A few night elf irregulars exited the huntress lodge while conserving with a uniformed sentinel, and he noticed a periwinkle face looking his way just before he felt the fingers on his behind.

"You didn't even look for me," Zhenya scolded form behind him while slapping his ass.

Shocked by the flagrant lack of restraint anathema to both night elves and draenei, Navarion spun around to see her and fought an internal battle over whether to grab her ass right back or tell her bluntly to wait until they could be alone. Her war hammer had been left at her bunk as far as he could tell, but she still wore all of her armor, helmet-mask and all.

"I did look for you, but the lodge was crowded," he protested while trying unsuccessfully to wrap his arm around her shoulder. The two of them walked toward the barracks without the need to speak; he wanted to remove his armor and she likely to wanted to do the same. "What's your assignment?"

"Patrolling the eastern wall, just behind the military quarter here," she huffed as if it were an insult.

"Hey, what's wrong with that? You literally have a two minute walk to the guard tower you'll need to report to."

Zhenya shook her head as they passed more regular troops on the road, the peaceful feeling of the city under a canopy contrasting with the war machines on display everywhere. "I will also see my place of work when I wake up and go to sleep. I think I'll spend most of my time off duty in the city proper. I don't want to feel tied down."

"That statement defines your personality more than you realize," he laughed, reveling in her lack of social awareness.

"You're mad because you can't control me."

This time when he reached for her, he waited until her hoof hit a gap in the moonstones paving the road and managed to pull her deeply enough into an embrace as they walked that she wouldn't have been able to pull away unless she made a scene - which, thankfully, she didn't do that time. "One day, you're going to have to let your wall come down. The world is much funner this way."

"Say more fun, not funner." He only laughed at her comment and didn't take the bait, denying her the gratification of getting under his skin again. "Soraya is the captain of your unit."

"How do you know what my unit is?" Navarion asked suspiciously. "I didn't see you when I was signing up."

"Your backside is almost as cute as mine is," she said flatly in the unsexiest tone he could have imagined.

"You're a paramount of propriety. But seriously, how do you know Soraya is the captain of the unit patrolling the far western city wall?"

Zhenya already started to ascend the ramp into the ancient of war serving as the barracks of female irregulars. "I saw her name on the list the cute officer was filling out. You're going to have loads of fun." She laughed heartily both at her taunt and at his scowl when she complimented the other man's looks, sauntering into the barracks with just a little more sway in her hips than usual.

Ignoring the thistle colored ponytail passing in behind her, Navarion grumbled to himself as he ascended the ramp to the male barracks. If he found Zhenya tomorrow after he dealt with the stink silithids, he'd make sure to give her a great big bear hug.


	3. Undomestic Discord

Navarion hung back from the rest of the group a few paces, hiding himself in the dense foliage of the hill overlooking the beach. Being only half night elf, he couldn't shadowmeld like his mother and wouldn't have been able to hide. Stealth wasn't his style, anyway - he had other ways of avoiding damage.

Captain Soraya didn't seem to appreciate that, however, and preferred to growl at him to keep himself hidden every few seconds as she and the others observed the movement of the silithid burrows on the beach. Because she and the two others with her could stealth and see the targets just fine, Soraya didn't bother to tell him what was happening and the two soldiers accompanying them - a female and another male - were too afraid to speak up if the captain of their unit didn't.

After at least half an hour of straight observation on their parts and hiding behind a blue fern on his part - he'd long ago dyed both the leather and the chainmail parts of his armor indigo to match the color of his mane - she captain whispered to him.

"Hearthglen, I'll need you down there with me."

Ears pricked up, Navarion knelt low to the ground and pressed as closely against the blue ferns as he could. The two sentinels remained flat on their stomachs as they lay on the grass just within the shade the edge of the inner city forest provided from the moonlight, absolutely motionless as they held watch. Close and closer crawled Soraya until her stealthed, kneeling figure came into view just outside of the ferns. Guessing her as the type that preferred her subordinates to only speak when spoken to, he waited for her to continue.

"How many of your voodoo devil sticks do you have prepared?" she asked, not s hint of scorn laced in her disrespectful comment.

"Captain, they're stasis traps, and they connect to the world of spirits; that's different from demons-"

"You were not asked to proselytize for your beliefs, irregular." There was the scorn that had been oddly absent, back with a vengeance. "How many of those things do you have?"

"Four, ma'am. Each one has a diameter of ten feet."

"That isn't very far," she complained flatly, finding nothing positive to say to any of the irregulars, ever. What she lacked in tone of voice she made up for in her harsh words, and he wondered how someone like her could have advanced in a society that valued manners and etiquette. "I need you to space them out appropriately to defend our position."

"Defend it from what, ma'am? How many of the stink bugs are out there?"

Sighing as if it were a chore to inform her subordinates of the dangers she was asking them to face, she sat down on the grass next to him, still stealthed. "Look, it isn't that difficult. There are three burrows here on this part of the beach. The sand is soft so the burrows can't be that deep and thus the silithids won't be that numerous. The moment you start placing your wards, they'll probably charge so you only have a few seconds to make sure that we're covered." Her explanation noticeably failed to include mention of needing to protect himself as well.

Swallowing back his resentment at the gaping difference in treatment received by regulars and irregulars, Navarion slowed his breathing in preparation to respond. "None of the other units along the shore have attacked their targets yet, captain?"

He sensed an immediate shift in her demeanor, and a measure of hostility filled the air. The leather straps holding her plate armor in place creaked as she knelt further forward to see him under the ferns, furrowing her brow in anger as she made her dislike of him very apparent. "Our unit is leading the attack, you...do you mean to tell me you ignored Commander Lamia's instructions during the briefing?" Soraya asked indignantly.

Navarion held his tone steady but flashed a wave of hot indignance of his own right back at her. "You informed me that the briefing was only for regular enlistees, ma'am," he said in an overly cordial voice. The two other soliders shifted uncomfortably, and he could tell that he was dancing a thin line.

He didn't cross it, however, and Soraya mumbled something incoherently as she found no logical answer in the face of her own dismissive forgetfulness. He could vaguely make out the darkening color of her ears revealing her embarrassment as she turned away in frustration. Once she reached the other two soldiers, she waited for a moment to calm her nerves before whispering back to him again.

"Now. Place them all equidistant to form a wall around us."

Navarion stretched his shoulders and quadriceps, tested his ankles and wrists and bolted. The moment he left the ferns, he could see the targets. Huge, bloated beetle like silithids crawled around on the beach, picking at a deer carcass one of them had dragged to the three burrows surrounded by crawling larva a foot long each. The beetles were neon orange and jet black, impossible to miss, and hover around at a snail's pace while guarding their underground domiciles.

Nimble elven feet carried Navarion across the sand, helping him to maintain a speed commensurate with that of a theoretical full blooded elf. He quickly covered the ten yards marking the halfway point between the edge of the inner city forest - how the silithids had managed to set up nests within the part of the shore enclosed by city walls was anybody's guess - and slid into a kneeling position. The entire sprint had taken him half a second and he could hear the female soldier coo through her nose in appreciation from behind him as he laid down the first ward before any of the silithids had a chance to notice.

Nimble elven hands set up the ward perfectly, the cursed turtle shell not even clacking against the bundle of fel enchanted sticks, bones and animal sinew that formed the body of the ward. Based off of an almost sentient power he imbued in the ward as he set it down, the bundle sank itself into the sand until it was secure without the need for his help, and he already had the second ward settled into the sand by the time the silithids began to chitter in alarm to one another. Even the larva rallied menacingly at the site of a potential threat to their hive, and the large bodied, fully grown beetles lined up to form a sort of phalanx as the third and fourth wars were embedded in the sand. The four of them formed a half circle around the position of Captain Soraya and the two other troops, and by the time Navarion finished his voodoo spoke to him of the other units further east along the shoreline who readied themselves in reaction to his presence. Regulars and irregulars dotted the woodlands that grew right up to the edge of where the sandy slope began, and further down the vast expanse enclosed by the walls of New Nendis he could see other silithid nests that increased in activity at the distant chitters of the beetle phalanx that started to march in his direction.

Soraya hung back, waiting for the targets to move a little closer before she struck. The huge beetle like silithids sped up somewhat as Navarion took a step back, wary of their ability to shoot clouds of stinking gasses to scare away potential threats. Their chittering grew louder as they tried to make a threatening display, flapping the shells on their backs open to show him the neon orange as their weak, flightless wings buzzed. They absolutely disgusted him, and that was probably why he found his hand reaching for the pistol in his holster before he'd even realized what he was doing.

The gun was always kept loaded, a precautionary measure since reloading took at least five seconds - a very long period of time in a combat situation. Unused to fire arms, Soraya failed to protest and he knew she hadn't realized what he was doing either until he squeezed the trigger. The first shot rang out loud enough to send the silithids further down the beach into a frenzy, charging in his direction in futility from their positions hundreds of meters away. The musket ball flew out of the barrel and ripped into the armored head of one of the beetles, blinding it due to nerve damage but failing to kill it. It broke the formation of the phalanx and rotated in circles as it screeched, leaving the other beetles and larvae to charge right into the statis traps as they triggered the wards.

"Damnit, Hearthglen!" Soraya growled as she ran to his side, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him back in a vain attempt to save him.

Before they even stupidly reached the stasis traps and their collective doom, the silithids had already fired off their skunk like gas. The fumes shot out of their raised anuses like focused jets of hot steam, except the gas actually felt cool and refreshing.

Felt. Not smelled.

"Oh, shit!" Navarion screamed as the odor choked him and stung his nostrils and throat.

He stumbled and so did Soraya, and the captain shouted every curse word in Darnassian as she hit the ground in full view of her subordinates - a far more demeaning occurrence for night elves than it would have been for almost any other race save perhaps blood elves. The two of them tumbled over each other, clasping gauntlets over mouths as they didn't even bother raising their weapons or helping each other stand.

Fel runes spread out across the ground in reaction to the first larvae passing over the triggering border of the wards, crackling like red electricity as an invisible force pulled them hard into the ground. The voodoo didn't actually pull them into the sand, leaving the ground itself untouched as the runes bound anything hostile to them. The utter idiocy of insects went on full display as the beetles and the rest of the larvae continued crawling over one another to spray again and ended up collapsing into the ring of stasis traps. The two other soldiers raced over to Navarion and Soraya both, but the captain shoved them away and began flinging her glaive in order to save face. The triple bladed weapon bounced from one target to another, ricocheting in a way that only a seasoned warrior of several thousand years could pull off. The two troops, obviously much younger, settled for aiming their glaives at single targets instead, letting their glaives bounce back after one successful hit. They were deadly, but far less quick and efficient than Soraya.

All up and down the beach, the silithids began to run their way only to be blindsided by the mass of ponytails and glaives charging from the forest. The sound of the women ululating filled the air like a deafening chorus as the other units seized the opportunity provided by the distraction of the gunshot and ran right through the rest of the stink bugs without incident. Chittering rang out and then ceased as every last beetle and larve were slaughtered, and those that hid inside the burrows were flushed out by offensive starfall spells from the handful of priestesses and, if they weren't fried outright by the moon magic, they were quickly sliced by flying blades before having the change to spray their disgusting fumes.

"It's a total wipeout!" the female soldier chirped as the rest of the silithids lay lifeless on the shoreline after not more than a minute and a half of fighting.

"Not yet it isn't!" shouted the male soldier.

The blinded beetle chittered and followed the sound of their voices, rising up on its legs and threatening to spray the entire unit. The two younger night elves faltered and ran, looping circles around the row of wards as they tried to escape the confused bug. Since they didn't enter the danger zone of the stasis trap, thinking they could use it as a barrier, the beetle didn't either and it chased them around in a circle. Only when Navarion flexed and then pumped his fist, letting a sickle blade the length of his forearm spring out of the contraption attached to the top of his right bracer and gauntlet, did the two soldiers relax as the half night elf sliced the last beetle's head clean off.

The usual discipline of the Sentinel Army temporarily fell into disorder as cheers rose from the congregating units to the east. Unscathed, ungassed sentinels chattered away as their officers tried to restore some semblance of order to what was otherwise considered the most orderly and organized military on all of Azeroth and Draenor. The relieved young female and male sentinel in their unit looked relieved once they were no longer under threat of being hit by biological weapons, and they took to finishing off the trapped silithids gleefully as the stasis traps did their job and continued to pin the big bugs to the beach.

The unit's captain, however, didn't feel as pleased.

"Gah!" Navarion grunted as she grabbed him by the part of his mane growing from the back of his neck so roughly that he arched his neck in reaction.

Soraya stood an entire foot shorter than him, but the captain's authoritative nature more than made up for that. "Trap the bugs and heal!" she hissed into his ear, and he could feel she was close to violating the prohibitions on corporal punishment without trial within the Sentinel military. "I gave you no order to attack!"

The female and male soldiers both looked uneasy, obviously disagreeing with their captain but not brave enough to show open defiance. Ever the duty bound soldier as his mother had raised him to be, regular or not, Navarion didn't resist physically but instead verbally.

"Captain, look! The other hives focused on my gunshot, so the rest of the units emerged unharmed from the skirmish!" He pointed to the celebrating sentinels down the beach in such a quick, jerky motion that Soraya actually didn't look in spite of her growl at being given a request by a subordinate. "Our being doused in noxious gasses prevented others from enduring the same!" he protested as she loosened her grip on his mane.

Retaining her lighter grip, Soraya continued to glare at him for a moment before turning to see the upbeat sentinels gloating over their kills as the officers rounded them up and corralled them back into the forest. Martyrdom featured prominently in night elven chronicles, and tales of soldiers making last stands and tanking innumerable enemies to protect allies abounded. To absorb damage for the sake of comrades represented a strong desire in their culture, and the appeal was accordingly strong to the captain. Despite her resentment of his presence in her unit, the message broke through and Soraya slowly let go of him as the two soldiers behind them sighed in relief.

"Wait for my command next time," she mumbled begrudgingly.

After traveling with her for the long hike from the Darnassian Base Camp, Navarion had come to know that the statement was the closest thing to both a compliment and apology he could expect from her. Gladly accepting it, he bowed to the captain unflinchingly and promised to pray for her success in life or something flowery like that. He literally forgot what he had said the moment after he'd said it, but Soraya accepted his acknowledgement of her authority and surveyed the damage.

"Mission accomplished, team," she addressed to the two soldiers once they finished off all the larvae. Navarion began to collect his wards, knowing she'd been too humbled by having been wrong twice to speak to him again. "You two, please report back to Commander Lamia of our lead in to the successful clearing of the shoreline. Due to our defense, I will require a visit to the bathhouse before returning to HQ."

"Ma'am, yes ma'am!" the two soldiers cried in unison before falling into step and disappearing into the woods, heading for the city proper.

The job well done, Navarion slung his wards back into their carrying case and salvaged his musket ball from the head of the decapitated beetle. Just as he began to walk toward a bathhouse he knew to offer private showering rooms for individuals, Soraya stopped him.

"Hey Hearthglen," she droned in her sentinel voice as she turned to leave in a different direction.

"Yeah?"

Almost shy to pronounce the words out loud, Soraya stiffened a little too much in her attempt to appear commanding once more. Her nose turned up just a little too high and the closed eyes were too dramatic to be believable.

"You did well out here."

He smiled, knowing not to gloat in a situation that may not repeat itself again. Sincerely touched by her open confession, he nodded and waited for her to walk away first. "Thank you, ma'am," he hummed.

Nothing left save a formal salute, Soraya turned and left disappearing toward the northeast district of New Nendis. Very soon, Navarion found himself alone on the beach except for two exceptionally young looking night elf irregulars judging by the rapidity of their movements. Both of them carried torches and were lighting the silithid carcasses on fire one by one. Confident that he wouldn't need to clean the mess his unit had left, he turned and walked through the woods.

Night elf cities were almost always gorgeous. Wide patches of woodlands right smack dab in between buildings were the norm, often used to conceal the moonwells and reflection shrines from view of passersby. The buildings themselves were also trees, and their tendency to build up rather than out meant that there were people and animals at all levels of the forest cities. Among any other people noise pollution would be an issue, but elves were naturally a quiet and reserved race and the sensation of being surrounded by people in their settlements felt less smothering and more comforting, like one became a part of the magical ecosystem. As he found a footpath in the woods lining the north edge of the city against the shore, he noticed the wisps, another one of his favorite features. Tiny, glowing forest spirits, the little mute beings not only helped the priestesses to raise buildings and walls via direct intervention in the balance if the more stable but slower Druidic magic wouldn't do the trick, but they also gathered resources and fashioned many items that other races had to craft and extract by hand. Despite of the greater technology and material wealth of the Alliance, quality of life in lands governed by the Sentinels was higher, and the humming, twinkling little spirits played a big part in that. A few of them danced around Navarion as he followed the path toward the wellspring in the northwest district, the site of a slightly more expensive bathhouse offering more privacy; the wisps tickled his ears and bathed him in their ethereal glow, unperturbed by the noxious odor wafting up off of him.

Once he reached a properly paved road, paved by naturally risen moonstones, he found the typically heavier nighttime traffic of pedestrians and civilian workers milling about in front of the four or five places of business he'd need to cross in order to reach the bathhouse. Not wanting to offend anyone by his smell, he walked around the back of the shorter trees functioning as shops in order to reach his destination, slinking around the side and into the front door of the long stone structure enclosing the wellspring in that part of town.

Nobody else was in the lobby save himself, a clerk and an attendant, both of them night elf females so young that they were probably born well after the Third War like he was. They chatted excitedly about something until they noticed him coming toward the front desk. At first, they gave him the look of curious attraction Navarion had grown used to receiving from pureblooded women of both trolls and elves, fascinated by someone who looked comfortingly familiar yet dangerously exotic at the same time. Were he in his younger days, his once overinflated ego would have swelled, but having passed this thirty fourth year, he found himself better able to stave off any creeping arrogance his knowledge of his own good looks might cause him.

Not that he'd need to ground himself this time. The moment he stood next to the counter, the stench from the stink beetles' smelly attack hit both of the young women so hard that they both cringed. The one on the left's eyes actually started watering.

"Oh goddess, you poor thing!" the woman on the right cooed while plugging her nose.

"Have the bugs on the beach all been cleared out?" the woman on the left asked, trying her best to ignore the sting in her eyes.

Not even waiting to ask them if they could also find him a runner, Navarion began to strip right there. His belt, baldric, ward case and bracer-gauntlet combinations were already on the counter when he started to speak. "The coastline will be free should either of you be in need of long walks on the beach under the twilight." The two of them giggled at his line despite the horrible smell, covering their noses and mouths but settling into slightly flirtatious body language all the same. "Unfortunately, the captain of our unit and I took direct hits. I'll be in need of a hot shower and a runner - my gear will need to be cleansed and I'll need light clothing." He flopped all of his upper garments and his boots on the table, eliciting more awkward laughs as the two women didn't know whether to ogle his abs or cover their stinging eyes. Hi

"Oh, sir, my goddess...yes, I think we can handle the delivery job for your gear. We can probably just give you some clothes in the back along with a towel," the woman on the right, seated on a stool and probably the cashier as he guessed, giggled uncontrollably while trying to breathe through her mouth. "Could you get the-"

"I can," the assistant replied while pulling a large burlap sack from under the counter.

She held it open in front of Navarion, and he gladly deposited the gear from the counter inside. When he bent over and removed his leather breeches, leaving him in nothing but his boxer shorts, the giggling was accompanied by blushing as the two women almost appeared flustered and gagging as the stench almost became too powerful for them to bear. As a child, Navarion had been blessed by the balance on the boughs of Teldrassil during a family pilgrimage; it was the reason he was immune to status effects such as charm, sleep or fear spells and psychological attacks such as mind control or sound waves. It also made the stench from the stink beetles a little easier to bear, and he realized that to others, the stench must be worse than it was for him.

"You sure you don't need to deposit that, too?" the assistant asked cautiously, pointing to his underwear.

The cashier glared at her in mock anger, too overwhelmed by the smell to chastise her for impropriety. The attendant only grinned like a tart but tied the burlap bag closed all the same, preparing to take it out herself. "You're one of the irregulars, right?" she asked through her hand, almost sounding apologetic as she had to get down to business.

"Navarion Hearthglen, residing at the front male irregulars' ancient of war," he stated, finally becoming halfway serious. "You technically have my coin purse there; don't feel like you have to skimp on any sort of balance based or chemical cleansing necessary."

The attendant, diminutive by Kaldorei standards, struggling to hold the sagging bag in her hands while hurrying out the door. "Oh, don't worry. I might be skimpy with my own clothes, but I'll give yours...um...proper attention!" She looked pleased with her cheesy line that didn't entirely make sense, but winked at him suggestively nonetheless, earning a chuckle from him and a watery eyed glare from the cashier.

Once she'd left, the cashier hopped off of her stool and led him down a hallway. The stones of the bathhouse felt smooth beneath his feet, almost like tile, and the steam hit him as she led him into an anteroom where two more halls split into rows for men and rows for women. It didn't entirely make sense to him that there would need to be separate rows for women and men if the showering rooms were private anyway, but he knew the restraint of the night elves prevented them from questioning many of their society's gender segregation rules.

Rummaging through a portable wooden closet, the cashier pulled out a towel cradling several different types of soap and shampoo as well as a fresh set of cheap cotton clothing and underwear. To an extent, the steam must have covered the odor of the beetle bomb because she stopped gagging every time she opened her mouth to speak.

"Any of the stalls that are free are yours, as are the clothes," she said formally, suddenly becoming less flirtatious and more professional when they were alone together.

"Thank you, sister," he replied, nodding respectfully. He carefully took everything in his hands and did his best to avoid touching her lest he spread the awful smell.

She watched him as he walked a few stalls down and found an open one a good distance away from the anteroom and stepped inside. "Just holler if you need any more soap!"

"Don't worry, you gave me three bars, though I think I'll need to use all of them," he hollered to the amusement of them both.

Most bathhouses were communal pretty much everywhere one could go; it was cheaper and more practical that way. Establishments promising privacy like these were typically quite expensive and rare, and Navarion wondered how much damage he'd be doing to his coin purse. Money well spent regardless, he thought to himself as he set the towel, clothes, bars of soap and vial of shampoo on a marble shelf naturally jutting out of the wall.

The stall was much longer than it was wide. Standing up straight, the ceiling was thankfully high enough for his head not to be visible had there actually been other people in the next few stalls, and his shoulders didn't actually press against the walls. Unlike the smooth floors out in the hall, the floor of the stall itself was a bit rough; not enough to bite into the soles of his feet, but enough to prevent slipping and falling. The length was enough such that he could lean forward on the wall opposite the non-moldy wooden door and stretch out without the risk of his clothing getting wet. The fact that night elf structures had running water as the norm - they had been using simple leverage and valve technology for millennia - was a boon; goblins and gnomes had invented pressurized systems that blasted water at higher power, but those were still available only for the elites of their respective societies. As hierarchical as the Kaldorei could be in terms of prestige, they at least we're more egalitarian in terms of the comforts they afforded the average citizens.

The entire scene was so beautiful to his eyes that he almost forgot about his stinking hide for a moment just so he could stop and gaze upon the relative splendor. Eventually, his stinking hide bothered him again and he quickly snapped off the underpants he'd decided to just throw away and switched the water on, letting it run while the marble stall filled with steam.

There were none of the metallic hums or mechanical whines he'd become used to growing up in goblin cities. Like rain, the sound of the water simply running soothed his mind and even though the march to the city and the skirmish on the beach hadn't left his muscles sore, he felt as if he were on the receiving end of one of Zhenya's massages anyway. Taking the first bar of soap, he let the water soak his mane, hide and the bar and then began the long process of lathering every inch of his body.

It felt good to have a proper shower again; having fought campaigns across the lands of the night elves for so long, he'd grown used to either jumping into a river and drying off in the sun or simply roughing it and going without a shower. Not that he preferred things that way; even being only half elven, hygiene preoccupied his mind constantly and the life of a soldier didn't exactly help to quell that preoccupation. But there, now, when he was able to settle in to the sufficient pressure of the shower head and massage the bar of soap into every nook and cranny until it dissolved, he felt like it was a dream come true. He scrubbed and scrubbed and lathered and scrubbed some more, then switching to unbraid his impossibly long goatee and use the entire vial of shampoo on that and his mane in three rinsing sessions. He started on the second bar of soap and made it halfway through before the smell truly seemed to have left him. His gear got the worst of it, anyway.

Smiling to himself as every muscle in his body loosened and relaxed, he even began to lather some of the soap into his mane. Why not? It was there, he could rinse it out and it was probably health anyway. He didn't actually have evidence for that, but it seemed like a good guess. Lathering it onto his scalp felt like a massage. Massaging one's own self never felt as relaxing as receiving a massage from someone else, but it still certainly felt nice. It was the least he could do; he'd tried massaging his own back before and it didn't work. But at least to massage his own head felt rather nice. Enrapturing. Envigorating...as if he felt energized by it. It didn't make sense...until he felt her manicured finger nails brush against his scalp.

How could his voodoo fail him? Unless he was simply so intoxicated by the steam and her touch to have noticed.

Thoughts of how a paladin knew how to pick the lock on the door of the bathroom stall melted away when he felt her bosom pressed against his back. Thoughts of what she'd done with her armor and how she'd snuck into the men's row of stalls dissipated when he heard the light clopping of her hooves on the floor. Thoughts of how he'd explain her presence to the cashier once they needed to leave vanished when she gasped at the way he spun around and pulled her close.

And then...

...pushed her face first beneath the shower head and snickered as she nearly drowned without being actually under water.

"Ack! No! You fuck! Face!" Zhenya sputtered, clinging to Navarion for balance as the two of them squirmed naked in the shower against each other.

"That's for thinking you can check out other guys right in front of me," he snickered again while pulling her close, watching the anger in her glowing golden eyes shimmer through the steam.

She wiped her drenched, neon yellow and hot pink locks away from her fast as she coughed up more water. Her balance still off, she continued leaning in to him to remain upright though the eroticism had quickly disappeared after his practical joke. "You were checking out those two elf bitches outside!" she hissed right back at him, keeping her voice quiet to avoid detection and making up for the lack of volume via an unhealthy dose of cussing.

He tutted his tongue against the roof of his mouth and began lathering her up with soap. In vain, she tried to resist and prevent him from scrubbing the remains of the second bar of soap all over her. Truth be told, Zhenya was shorter than average for a draenei but even stronger than most of the men, and her resistance was stiff. She wasn't as strong as Navarion, however, and he almost got a rise out of the way she tried so hard and failed even harder to push him away as he smothered her against the wall and forced her to let him bathe her.

"I'm not a child!" she hissed again.

"Most people would find it romantic if their partner wanted to bathe them in the shower," he chuckled while forcing her to raise her arm so he could scrub underneath. "Those two women were nice women, by the way, and I wasn't checking them out. Since you were apparently spying on me - which signals a serious lack of trust on your part - you know that my gaze never went below the neck and that my comment about walking on the beach was made without a flirtatious intonation."

She shook her head in dismissal, accidentally banging her single complete horn against the wall. The other one had been broken off halfway, but she changed her story as to how it happened every time he asked. "I've told you this before: you will not control me. I will look at whoever I want and do who...whatever I want." Her slip of the tongue was so over acted that it was obvious she'd intended it, once again trying to provoke him.

This time, he kept his cool. When the second bar of soap had dissolved, he led her by the hand in the most friendly, unsexy way possible and left her to rinse off by herself, turning away and folding his arms. "If you keep looking at other people, I'm never touching you again."

In a flash, she spun around. Despite her prowess in battle, her hooves spinning on the slanted concrete floor combined with the flowing water caused her to lose her balance and trip. He reached out to take her by the arm and help her stand up, keeping as big a distance as possible and making it clear that there wouldn't be any action going on. She furrowed her brow in frustration, leaving the soap suds to drip down the side of her face.

"I don't do commitment. You know that. You know that very well." Her defiance was tempered by something he couldn't quite detect, and her tone was considerably weaker and less argumentative than when they'd discussed the topic before.

"Then maybe what we have going has run its course," he huffed.

He knew all of his anger, consternation and even his fear of what leaving her would actually be like bubbled up to the surface in his tone of voice and the expression on his face, but his words had hit her fast enough such that he knew he could give a bit of ground this time. His attachment to her was strong, but not to the level where they felt they loved each other, and she was very aware of both of those points. The argument about their status had been few, but they'd occurred over the past month whereas they'd never occurred at all previously. She broke eye contact and looked at the water flowing across the floor for a moment, shaking her head at nothing. Her expression was as blank as usual when she was unhappy, but his retuned voodoo told him of how upset she was. That wasn't usual for her.

"Be patient with me," Zhenya asked shyly, refusing to look at him. It was pitiful to see on someone normally so arrogant and full of herself, and he almost felt bad despite not having a logical reason for it.

Hesitation was unfounded, and he pulled her close again. She leaned her head onto his chest as the shower drenched them both, too proud to actually hug him back but coming as close as she ever had to trying to be the one to make up after a fight. Her heavy breathing was only partially from lust as he could literally feel her suppressing her anger at having been scolded, serving herself a heaping helping of crow. He should feel a sense of victory given how often she intentionally pissed him off regarding the topic and even disrespected him publicly sometimes, but his heart strings were pulled tight and he felt sorry for her despite having told himself he wouldn't. He squeezed her even closer and when she squeezed back, he gently pressed her against the wall again.

One benefit to having taken part in the beach beetle bash earlier and been stink bombed was the early finish to the night's duties. The entire stalking and preparation had taken under an hour, top and the actual skirmish a mere two minutes. By the time he'd even wandered into the bathhouse stalls and emerged alongside Zhenya, the jealous bathhouse attendant had already had his gear magically cleansed of the stench and ready to be picked up. Fresh, clean, rested and sated in at least one way, Navarion and Zhenya found themselves with half the night remaining before they'd need to sleep. Once they were walking out and about once more, smelling like disinfectant soap and fragrant shampoo, the whole ordeal seemed worth it.

For the first time, they were able to get a good look at New Nendis that night. Outside of the military quarter, life was less rigid and the atmosphere more pleasantly slow. Much of the city still had yet to be grown, and the Kaldorei tended to take time in raising their buildings in order to make sure the balance wasn't disturbed. It didn't take as much time as constructing a building by hand did, but it wasn't immediate. Still, the parts of the city that were inhabited were packed, busy and lively by elven standards. On the streets below where they walked, most of the tree dwellings were enormous greenwoods, reaching high up to the sky on either sides of all the roads and forming a beautiful canopy that provided protection from rain, snow, high winds and the dreaded sun. As he'd noticed in other parts of the city - they'd wandered so long that he was no longer sure where they were - the hollowed out trees of enormous diameter features four or even five stories, linked together by firm, sturdy and very safe walkways formed of vines and branches that sprouted from separate trees, naturally growing together as one living being linking all the plant life together. Even for a half elf raised in an industrial goblin city, the natural beauty was breathtaking.

Exploration of the city's upper levels would be for another night, however. On their first time enjoying their surroundings, they both felt content to walk side by side, people watch and learn the location of various shops, restaurants and tea houses in what would be their new home for the next half a year as they finished up their assignments. One advantage of being a mercenary is that their tours of duty were of negotiable length and after they were done, all strings were promptly detached.

The familiar scent of kimchi, a dish popular among night elves and only night elves, caught his attention. Off to the side, a handful of younglings about Navarion's age managed a stall where they both prepared and served the dish, doling out small bowls they accepted back from the customers along with the chopsticks and rinsed everything off under a water pump at a basin behind them. He vaguely noticed the two soldiers from his earlier unit waiting in line already.

"Hey, look," he hummed while trying to take Zhenya by the arm. She pulled away roughly as if she'd forgotten their earlier conversation at the bathhouse, but he ignored it. "A real Kaldorei kimchi stall. You liked it the last time you tried it!"

"No I didn't," she mumbled while following him to wait in line anyway. She folded her arms in front of her as they waited, her posture stiff even after their tryst in the steamy bathhouse stall.

At the sound of his voice, the two soldiers from earlier turned around. It wasn't normal for female and male night elves to so openly socialize, and neither of them were wearing promise rings - he knew of the jealousy of the females from his mother's behavior around his father, and finding some way to mark their males was common. The two of them stood even more closely together than Navarion and Zhenya did, he noted in disappointment, and assumed them to be very young and rather liberal to flaunt a mixed gender friendship so obviously.

"There's our hero," the male chuckled as the half elf approached. The young man, perhaps even younger than Navarion, had a neatly clipped beard not more than half an inch long. Older night elf men might even say it wasn't a beard at all, in a disapproving tone. He could almost hear the jokes from his godmother Irien about overbearing, hypertraditional night elf parents and their accented a Common already. "We avoided a serious tragedy because of you!"

"You don't stink anymore, if it's any consolation," the female joked as they all moved forward with the line.

"There's a bathhouse not far from the beach, and I managed to make it over there without offending anybody as I walked by." Navarion tried to stand as close to Zhenya as the two purely elven soldiers stood to each other, noticing that Zhenya inched away from him when he did. "I'm not sure about Captain Soraya, though."

"She was too shy to bathe in a place where there might have been other people to smell her," the female explained. Even though they didn't know him and Zhenya, the female soldier leaned forward as if she were sharing juicy gossip among trusted friends.

"The captain is all about appearances," the male added, rolling his eyes. "I'm Calil, by the way."

"Thresha," the female chimed in.

The half elf bowed politely, falling into more traditional social behavior. "I'm Navarion, at your ward placing and stink bug shooting service. This is Zhenya."

The draenei nodded but said nothing, displaying no emotion as she only waited to reach the front of the line. Either ignoring or not noticing her lack of manners, the two elves cut the very brief meeting short.

"It looks like it's our turn," Thresha said, moving to the front of the line to pay.

Calil tried to pull money of his own out as well, but wasn't fast enough and turned to the interracial pair instead. "We don't want to keep the hawkers waiting for their bowls back. Zhenya, it was nice meeting you, and I guess we'll see both of you back at the military quarter."

"You bet; we'll keep our eyes out for you guys."

The two elves promptly took their bowls and stepped aside, giving Navarion space to pay for his and Zhenya's. Thresha and Calil sat on a nearby bench, signaling that they preferred to eat without company. Numerous patrons finishing up their bowls of the pickled vegetables stood and talked amongst themselves on the nearby grass just off the main road, steam rising from the bowls. The scent of red chilies imported from Feralas tickled his nose, and when he turned away from the crowd he was greeted by what couldn't have been more than a teenager offering bowls to the both of them.

"Hey, thanks a lot," he hummed while accepting his bowl with both hands.

Zhenya took hers in her left hand and made a minor spectacle of paying for her bowl and adding a tip, embarrassing the girl accepting payment and all the elves and Tauren in the vicinity. Smiling at how quaint she appeared when out of her element, Navarion refrained from making any comments and felt content to blow lightly on his kimchi before eating it. Unable to use chopsticks even after years of living in Kalimdom, Zhenya simply pressed the bowl to her lips and shoveled the food inside.

The second pair of clopping hooves passing by didn't even catch his attention until he saw the bovine face.

A female Tauren wearing the light trappings of a healer passed by, looking in front of her path demurely as she did. Her light brown fur glistened from the light of the wisps following her around, and her entire calm demeanor spoke of peace and focus. She carried a bag of something in her hands, and wouldn't have looked up had the sense of vague recognition hit Navarion so hard.

"Wait...I know you," he surmised out loud while taking a step after her.

The middle aged woman turned to see him, balking at him at first. As a Tauren among elves, she was probably used to being the most 'different' person wherever she went. Navarion was still more foreign looking than her, however, and his instinctive hand on her shoulder to stop her almost caused her to flinch.

"Zoe...Zorna...Zorena? Zorena, is that you?" he asked the woman who had been an acquaintance of his parents from a larger military campaign two or three years before his birth.

The shy woman seemed offended that he'd touched her at first, every bit the self possessed Tauren matron who likely behaved like she was everybody's disciplinary aunt. When he didn't remove his hand, she became nervous, realizing that her demeanor and stereotypes about the women of her race and their ability to shame young people didn't deter the large man holding on to her. Only when she spent a moment studying his face, his complexion and his long indigo locks did she shift totally and actually step closer to him.

"Oh...my goddess!" Zorena exclaimed quietly while stepping off the main road to allow a group of off duty sentinels to walk by. She looked him up and down, certainly shocked that the imposing man before her had once been the bratty child she'd only met once and had the displeasure of watching him color on the map of a post office using his mother's dark azure lipstick. "Navarion, you're...an adult!"

"It happens to all of us, doesn't it?" he joked, the self deprecating nature of his comment lost on Zhenya, who suddenly became rather interested in her bowl of kimchi. "What are you doing here?"

She smiled at him and then frowned when she shifted and caused the bag in her hands to shake. "Well, I'm technically on duty right now...I'm a fully fledged member of the Cenarion Circle. I was only an initiate the last time I saw you."

"Oh, that's fantastic! I'm glad to hear that." He noticed her fidget in spite of her eagerness to talk and felt bad for holding her. "I'm at the military quarter - Zhenya here and I are a part of the war effort."

"Oh, alright then. I'm sure they'll be glad to have your talents here. A paladin, I see?" Zorena mentioned while looking to Zhenya, who bore no interest in the conversation. "Well, I'm staying at the barracks within the ancients of lore, it isn't too far from where you're staying."

"That's good to know, actually. Hopefully we'll be able to catch you at a time when we're both free!"

Subtle and low key, Zorena rolled her brown doe eyes in the slightest of motions, likely to have been unnoticed by many. "Whenever that time is," she chuckled while patting him on the shoulder. "Stay safe."

"Keep us safe!" he chuckled himself as she continued on to wherever she had been going. He watched her disappear into the crowds before turning back to Zhenya only to find her staring intently at something. Or someone, as he realized.

Just beyond the hawkers' stall, a group of low ranking sentinels and normal mercenaries carried crates of supplies from a private business over to a sabre drawn wagon. One of the lifters was a male, his armor swapped out for leather breeches. Zhenya focused entirely on his backside as he squatted down to lift a particularly heavy crate; when she noticed Navarion looking, she focused on an aesthetic, wisp powered lamp in a public display to pretend she'd been looking at it the whole time.

He stepped closer and glared at her, his irritation rising when she refused to talk. "Want to borrow my sketch pad?" he asked irately.

For a moment, she continued to focus on the wisp lamp before them. Unsure of what to say, she appeared to be trying to wait him out, but after their reconciliation in the bathhouse he felt as if her wandering eyes were a form of betrayal. When her expression hardened as if she'd been wronged, his irritation only increased.

"Yes. And some colored pencils, too." Her reply caught him off guard, and when he tried to respond she shoved her hand up in his face in the rudest way possible, letting it hover mere inches from his nose. "Be patient with me," she droned nonchalantly and walked away. She was obviously checking out several more of the men as she returned her bowl and chopsticks and wandered off on her own, almost taunting him with her lack of regard for his feelings.

Forcing himself to focus on his kimchi until he finished it, he distinctly tried to avoid thinking about her behavior, but to no avail. Navarion had cheated on some of the women he'd been with in the past; he felt horrible about it then and even worse about it now. Zhenya had never gone that far, and yet her tendency to talk about being with other people in front of him upset him from the start. What upset him even more was that she started doing it even more after she noticed how much it upset him. To top it all off, she continued to introduce herself as single when meeting new people. While she did refuse to let other men even kiss her on the cheek, her intentional stoking of a jealousy she knew he didn't even like in himself angered him beyond belief. Never had he been with a woman who denied a relationship with him rather than the other way around, nor had he been attached to someone who had the ability to make him adore her one minute and seriously consider slapping her the next.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the space around two wisps moved. Except wisps were blue, not silver. The movement of shape and color just in the very corner of his peripheral vision caused him to crane his neck and look over at the startled woman who hadn't realized he'd noticed her.

The cloak of an elven archer covered all but her hands, face and neck. Skin the color of periwinkle peeked out at him, as did a thistle colored braided ponytail wrapped lightly around her neck. The unknown young woman's face very faintly contorted in concern, as if she were upset about something. What that something was, he didn't know and had no way of knowing. The fact that she'd just witnessed the entire exchange between himself and Zhenya embarrassed him, however, and her sympathetic look made it even worse. Uncomfortable once he'd noticed her spying, the archer turned away and joined a group of her friends.

At that, Navarion turned away himself to return to the military quarter. A random person on the street feeling sorry for his bad excuse for a relationship was the last thing he needed after such an acrimonious parting of ways. Feeling his coin purse, he hoped he'd have enough money left for a light drink.

 **A/N: for those wondering about the kimchi, it does appear in game as a night elf food. I threw in the chopsticks, because...well, if they're eating Korean food, they might as well eat it properly.**


	4. Names

Navarion had heard of establishments springing up overnight before, but the naturally grown docks at New Nendis were something else.

Crouching over the corpse of a stray silithid on the beach, the shadow hunter took a brief rest to gaze out at the way work was done among his mother's people. The docks were similar to those he'd seen at Rut'theran Village at the roots of Teldrassil; completely symmetrical, aesthetic to a degree other races could only dream of yet sturdy, functional and self-repairing. The curved archways and naturally enchanted lamps all along the length of the pier were so beautiful that he even forget about having killed a few more silithids before he'd even reported for duty that night. A handful of Druids sat cross legged on the beach and faced the pier. Humming quietly to themselves, they all appeared to be in some sort of a trance as they were encircled by green swirls he recognized when his brother Zengu, a restoration dried, would shift into travel form. And yet the Druids didn't shift; they continued to sit in some sort of a meditation position, humming in tune - to each other or nature itself, he didn't know - and never opening their eyes. A nearly equal number of priestesses stood, their body language more active. Wisps danced around the outstretched arms of the powerful clergywomen, who bobbed every so often as if they were dancing to a rhythm deep inside the planet. The wisps would float away from their arms and begin to rotate around various support beams, safety railings and storage pens; as they did so, the wooden parts of the docks in question would elongate and grow, fitting into the shapes that the night elves needed for their port.

"This is way more efficient than how the other factions build things," Navarion remarked in admiration as he knelt in the soft sand about a hundred yards away. The dead bugs all around were only a distant memory. "Even the Steamwheedle Cartel. I don't like to admit it since my family is part and parcel of the organization, but I've worked on operations where they built docks before; it definitely takes longer than this."

Thresha and Calil sat next to each other on the beach just a few feat away from him, clasping their hands over their knees as they mimicked each other's posture. Once again, they were far closer to each other than was considered proper in their culture, but in the past month since he'd arrived Navarion had come to understand that they were just very good friends.

Stubborn as ever, Zhenya sat away from all three, her back facing to them in a way that was offensive to both night elves and draenei. She'd been uptight ever since Navarion had forcibly held her hand in front of a group of civilians they'd walked past, and the last thing she'd said to him was that he shouldn't act like 'her man.' Right in front of their two companions. Normally he would have been angry enough to grab her by the shoulders and shake the shit out of her, but she'd uttered the order so fast and so dismissively that he found his mood too deflated to even respond verbally, much less anything, killing the silithids for fun had given him a form of release and entertainment, and watching the docks rise up out of the damp soil of the beach had helped him to come down afterward.

Humming her agreement, Thresha talked in Darnassian for a minute before remembering that Zhenya never made any attempts to learn the language in all her years in northern Kalimdor, and switched back to Common. "When a community lives at peace with nature, the balance will respond to their needs; but it's a two way street."

"We have clear evidence of that, too," Calil chimed in. "It's been almost half a century since it was grown and the development of Teldrassil is still and a standstill. The tolerance for pollution and the outlanders who cause it has robbed it of the blessing of nature."

"Outlanders and even Kaldorei," Navarion opined, and both pureblooded night elves nodded.

"Yes, unfortunately I guess it's happened to a lot of our people in Stonetalon," the male sentinel conceded.

"Well, if anything, that's more proof for the truth of Elune," Thresha opined in Darnassian. That time, her code switching had been intentional. Despite Zhenya's premarital relations with Navarion (she refused to acknowledge them as anything more than friends with benefits), she upheld a strong belief in the Light and even argued with Thresha about religion once during the past month. The female sentinel had learned to avoid such discussions after that, and only switched back to Common when she'd finished her mandatory missionary message. "If we were meant to have Stonetalon back from the Horde, we would have attained it already; that we haven't after so many decades signals that we've gone about it the wrong way."

"Perhaps the success in rebuilding Nendis will inspire the people elsewhere to live more natural lives." As cheesy as it felt to even say out loud, Navarion did mean the comment, and he truly did feel inspired by how quickly the city had progressed.

"One could only hope," Thresha replied longingly while staring intently at the vines being woven into the shape of a ship's hull before hardening into wood under the direction of the priestesses.

Just like Navarion had expected, Thresha and Calil both turned out to be even younger than he was. In terms of personality, they weren't so different from members of the shorter lived races of comparable age. Much of what they knew about the history and culture of their people had been learned only from books; they were far, far less traveled than he, and had yet to see many of the historical landmarks of his mother's people. When they spoke of events such as the War of the Shifting Sands or even campaigns as recent as the Third War, they spoke in the same sense that young human's did about events from just a century ago. It was quaint and amusing to see two grown night elves behaving in such a way, even for someone as young as Navarion himself.

The three people bearing elven blood continued to sit and watch, but Zhenya had apparently had enough. Standing and dusting off her tight leather breeches, she stumbled across the sand to face the two sentinels. Hooves has obviously not been designed for volleyball or long walks on the beach and Navarion would have laughed at her in a good natured way were he not a bit bothered by her earlier behavior.

She stood right in front of Calil, blocking his view of anything else. "Calil, we need to report for duty in less than an hour. Mind if I borrow Thresha from you?" she asked in an exaggeratedly tartish way that Navarion knew she was using just to bother him some more.

The younger man appeared not so much nervous as uneasy and unhappy in reaction to Zhenya's behavior. "Ask her," Calil replied in a formal voice that most people other than Zhenya would have understood to be curt.

"Actually I wouldn't mind freshening up a bit before getting back into my armor." Thresha brushed her loose pants off and then stood up, bouncing on her toes as if preparing for a race. When she did, Navarion noticed Calil looking at her a little more closely than he usually did. "You guys can take care of yourselves, I'm sure. I'll see the two of you later," she said to Navarion and Calil both. They were still under Captain Soraya's command there on their patrol route of the western wall, and unlike Zhenya who avoided those she served with like the plague, the three of them enjoyed socializing off duty as well.

The two women shuffled up off of the sand and into the woodlands providing a natural barrier between the sea and the city proper. "See you later," Zhenya told Calil, making it obvious that she was telling only him.

The two men sat there on the beach, one twiddling his thumbs and the other seething at Zhenya's rudeness. All he had done was tried to hold her hand as they walked side by side, and that was after she'd pulled him in to an empty but tiny and secluded clearing in the woods, laid herself out on the grass in front of him and quite literally begged him for it. More and more, her behavior became erratic as he knew - without a shadow of a doubt, he absolutely, positively knew - that she intentionally tried to find ways to upset him. It was beyond uncalled for and entirely undeserved, no matter how much she might be irritated by his attempts to force a bit of romance on her.

Navarion snorted a self deprecating laugh out loud. How the tables had turned, the self styled ladies man thought to himself. Perhaps being with Zhenya was cosmic payback for the women he'd betrayed himself during his younger years.

Calil noticed the snort and turned to look at him. The younger man was a bit shy and lacked confidence. It was difficult to know if it was culture or Calil's personality as an individual; Navarion had interacted with many night elves but had never seen them growing up. Tiondel, Navarion's youngest brother, was adopted and of pure night elf heritage, but was just as much a part of the Hearthglen family as he was. Having been raised by their jungle troll father, Tiondel was every bit as ornery and brash as Navarion, and thus wasn't an example of the generality of the culture's young men.

Tired of the younger man's shyness, Navarion leaned back on the sand and prodded him a bit. "You're wondering about Zhenya?" he asked.

After recovering from his initial shock at his thoughts having been predicted so well, Calil spoke normally. "Yeah...does she know that you have a...I mean, you do have a crush on Zhenya, right?"

Laughing through a closed mouth, Navarion nodded, but not at the question. "You could say that she knows how I feel for the most part, yes. I think that's why she acts the way she does."

Calil pursed his lips for a moment as if her were thinking very hard about the statement and his response. "Women are complicated," was all that came out of his mouth.

Virgin, Navarion chuckled to himself internally. His level of comfort immediately rose as he realized he wouldn't be pulled into a contest to out-alpha each other and just tried to enjoy his last few minutes before donning his armor and going on patrol. "Thresha doesn't seem complicated. I have no idea why you don't try to hit that."

No sooner had the words exited from Navarion's lips than had Calil stiffened up and began letting his eyes dart around this way and that. "Uh...um...uh...well...you see, Thresha is...nice. She's really nice, and a great woman. I mean person!"

Ignoring the continued sputtering, Navarion leaned onto one elbow to face his new friend and attempt to help him stop taking things too seriously. "Relax, guy. There's nothing wrong with crushing on one of your friends. It's almost natural. You get to know each other, you spend time together, you learn each other's habits..." The half elf let his voice trail off while reminiscing over how he'd ended up in quite a few of his less acrimonious relationships after spending copious amounts of time with female comrades on the move during war efforts.

"No, well, maybe. I don't know."

"You're taking it too seriously."

Calil bristled at the comment and shut his eyes. It was unusual for him to be so tense. Normally, he was wide eyed and in awe of the developments they'd seen and experiences they'd had in the city. In fact, he and Thresha were quite similar in that respect, and Navarion wondered why nothing had yet blossomed between the two. Calil's apprehension told him the answer.

"I don't understand, right?" Navarion asked rhetorically, trying to use the most sympathetic tone he could. "And nobody understands and it's just complicated, isn't it?"

At that comment, Calil opened one eye in surprise. "That's exactly it," he replied hesitantly.

"Make me understand, then. I'll bet your situation isn't as weird as you think."

A great sign emanated from the younger man's throat, and he appeared to be gearing up for some huge confession. It was as if the revelation of the millennium were about to be released, and Calil was every bit as tense as one would expect.

"I like Thresha," he admitted after great effort just to pronounce the words out loud.

"Congratulations, you've fallen in like with somebody," Navarion chuckled. "So when are you going to ask her out?"

"What? Ask her out? No way!" Calil blurted out, as adamant as he was unintentionally hilarious.

"Dude, just do it."

"I can't! You don't understand!" Calil almost appeared upset; merely discussing the issue out loud bothered him quite a bit. "She made me feel..." Right away, Calil's eyes grew wide at his own comment and the spirits told Navarion of the guilt suddenly infesting the male sentinel. "Oh, that's unfair. She didn't do anything wrong."

"What exactly happened?" Navarion's interest was mainly as a friend and counselor, though he had to admit the suggestion that the two quaint elves could possibly have real drama intrigued him. "There must have been something that led to this."

"There...well...yeah, I guess so," Calil said in frustration - seemingly at himself. He clenched his fists as he clasped hand over hand across his knees, gripping so tightly that the leather of his gloves creaked. A single vein throbbed in the younger man's temple not in anger, but in whatever other negative emotion swirled around inside of him. Whatever he wanted to say was causing him great difficulty in just saying it.

"Thresha changed her clothes in front of me."

Raising an eyebrow, Navarion tried to peer into his companion to see how on Azeroth that could be a bad thing. For whatever reason, Calil was clearly distraught about the incident. Searching for a way to comfort the guy, Navarion tried to push a little further without being patronizing.

"So you feel like she doesn't acknowledge you?" the half elf asked.

"More than that," the full elf replied, a little more sure of himself. "We were at her apartment one day and her roommates were out...we were on leave and she'd invited me to stay at Forest Song, where she's from. So we were in her room and she suggested we go meet another group of her friends at a tea house and she..." Calil paused for a moment, visibly shaken by the memory. "She just took everything off and out on a fresh set of clothing. Like I wasn't even there. And I had to act normal when she told me 'alright, let's go' as if nothing had happened."

Navarion fingered the ending of one of his short tusks while listening, trying to wrap his head around Calil's complex. "And it was only this incident?"

"No. No, this lead to something. It was worse." Calil sighed deeply again but almost appeared to relax this time. It was as if he had resigned himself to accepting the situation as it stood.

"Well, in theory I could think of worse things than a woman you're attracted to stripping her clothes off in front of you. What the hell happened?"

Defeated by a mere memory, Calil spoke in a more controlled tone and no longer seemed to be holding anything back. "About three months ago, we were off duty midway on the inner coast of this region. We had been sent to protect a team growing a wall to demarcate the border between Sentinel and Horde territory. And there were a few Druids, male and female both. They were also off duty and were cooking on the beach, minding their own business. Thresha and I were with a few female friends, and she and I let the water touch our feet and she told me to jump in. I said she has to go first, just strip. And she gets this..." He grimaced, probably trying to mime her reaction and almost certainly exaggerating due to his own pain from the exchange. "...this look on her face, and she's like, 'I can't do that, there are men here,' and she pointed toward the male Druids."

It didn't take long for Calil's problem to dawn on Navarion. "You felt like she viewed you as inadequate?"

"That isn't a strong enough term. I mean...am I not even a man? Then what am I? Am I nothing? Because that's how I felt." More animated all of a sudden, Calil actually turned to face him. "And that's how it is for all of us, you know? We say our society tried to be more balanced in gender relations after immortality; the older generations dying off and our population decreasing and all. But the reality is that a man is still expected to be a Druid or else he's deficient. Nobody says that out loud and a lot of women might deny it, but this is the truth. A night elf female is respected no matter what she does. If she's a warrior, she keeps law and order. If she's a cleric, she writes the laws. If she's a druidess, she's forging a new path for our people. And if she can't fight, at least she can learn a trade, go hunting on the weekends and call herself an archer. But a man? If I'm not a Druid, then I'm someone who couldn't make it as a Druid. That's how our society divides us up."

Calil's mini-rant reminded Navarion so much of the complaints of the human and dwarven women he'd spoken to in the Eastern Kingdoms. The matriarchy of the night elves bore more similarities to the patriarchy of the jungle trolls than he'd previously thought. His friend didn't need a sociology lesson, though; he needed someone to empathize.

"Tell her that her face shimmers with the light of Elune whenever there's a full moon and that you want to go to a tea house and hang out alone together."

"No way!"

"Then languish in your current situation and spend the next few months wondering," Navarion quipped. Calil had been struck hard by the tough love at first and proved unable to respond, focusing on the sand of the beach. "I'm being serious. Look, you're hurt, I get it. Anybody would get it. But seriously, you have no reason not to at least try."

"But what if she says no?! I'll feel to embarrassed!" Calil protested.

"You've already been embarrassed and humiliated by her comments, so you technically have nothing to lose. And if she stops talking to you, then you have confirmation that it never would have been possible and you can move on."

After a few attempts at formulating a retort, Calil gave up and let his head hang low for a minute. Logic dictated that the full elf should just relax and think it over at another time and for once, logic won. "Maybe...I hope," Calil mumbled and started to twiddle his thumbs again.

The moon sat fully above the horizon after a few minutes more, and what little sunlight remained was rapidly disappearing. "We need to gear up," Navarion said and stood up, kicking a silithid husk aside and taking a few steps forward so his companion would follow.

"Yes, of course," Calil replied, and quickly followed into the woodlands marking the far northern edge of the city.

One of many positive habits of elves was their preference for walking in silence, and Calil's preoccupation with the advice earned Navarion a good deal of mental peace and quiet of his own as they made their way back to the military quarter. The evening crowds had begun to come out, and very soon the streets were full of foot traffic as they were every night. Interestingly enough, there were very few nightsabres inside the city limits, and even the internal guards - police, as the rest of the world called them - walked about on foot as they made their rounds. In spite of the diverse array of mercenaries and foreign merchants, New Nendis was still overwhelmingly night elf and, per recent developments, overwhelmingly civilian. The concept of night elven civilians was something that his mother and godmother found amusing, both of them having grown up at a time when the men were almost all asleep and the women were all warriors of the night even if they also had day jobs. To see Kaldorei who moved without the rigidity of people who possessed military training almost had Navarion giddy with delight.

Once inside the military quarter, the two of them parted ways. Because he was a regular enlistee, Calil had managed to nab a bunk in the first ancient of war in the left just inside the natural tree walls of the quarter. The irregulars were all toward the back, away from the amenities and the public eye despite the fact that the Sentinel Army, if not the Air Force, relied on the numbers they added to the ranks. There had been plenty of time to get used to the unsurprising and perhaps even justifiable favoritism toward regular troops, however, and Navarion felt no resentment as he walked to the back end of the quarter in order to ascend the ramp into the ancient of war and get dressed.

Just as he reached the ramp for the men's barracks inside the ancient, he saw Zhenya fully suited up and ready to go in the opposite direction.

Navarion moved to block her, standing in her way and covering up even her view of the area behind him. She only tried to walk around him twice more before giving up, her ego likely screaming to her that the futile attempts were undignified for someone of her...well, he didn't know quite what exactly she felt she had that positioned her above everyone else around her, but whatever it was, he'd offended it. The paladin just paused in front of him, peering out through the eyeholes of her helmet-mask.

"I'm not sorry," she huffed while attempting to sound nonchalant, failing majorly as the defiance in her tone broke through.

It stung him more than he wished it had, but Navarion held his ground and refused to react. "I just came to wish you a good night on patrol."

"No you didn't. That's not your personality."

"It's in my personality to make amends. You know, whenever I get angry at you over the normal fights couples have-"

"We aren't a couple. We just do things in private."

"-I imagine how I would feel if you died. I force myself to think of how I would react knowing that you were there and then one day, you weren't. You were just gone from this world when I didn't expect it. And that makes everything else that bothers me seem so insignificant that I just want to value what time we have on this world."

Her mask prevented him from seeing if his line had hit her as hard as he had intended. Experience had taught him which words affected women of different personalities the hardest and which ones fell flat, and one thing he'd learned about them all is that the most effective way was telling the truth about how he felt. Irony taunted him as the one he'd become the most attached to in years was one nearly immune to his charm. Zhenya only looked at him, whatever way she reacted to his words contained beneath that suit of armor and ricocheting inside.

"That's kind," she quipped, her tone a bit less controlled but unreadable nonetheless.

The two of them lingered for a few more seconds before she clopped forward and pushed past him. He turned to watch her leave until she reached the main road and disappeared into the crowd, never looking back to see him.

Telling himself that she probably had been affected but was too haughty to show it or even admit it to herself, he wandered over to the men's barracks inside the other ancient of war to get his armor on and prepare for the same nightly patrol duty he'd been doing since he arrived.

Navarion peered out through the balistraria, surveying the killing fields between the walls of New Nendis and the lush, regrown forests of the northern peninsula of Azshara beyond. Most civilizations would have used a second wall to enclose the killing fields, but for night elves the forests were like a wall. The trees in northern Kalimdor were just a tad bit sturdier than elsewhere, the bark just a little bit more resistant to fire than normal. Entire woodlands could shift position to confuse potential invaders, and nature itself would attack exceptionally hostile enemies.

The silithids were different, however. Since the insectoids were neither undead nor demonic, the treants would not attack them unless directly ordered to do so by observers, and shifting the positions of trees wouldn't throw them off since they tracked by smell and heat. The open fields in clear view of the arrow slits in bartizans such as the one Navarion found himself standing in, however, would ensure that the insectoids never sneak close enough to invade the beach or anywhere else in the vicinity again.

At least, that's what Captain Soraya claimed as she talked Navarion's ears off about fort growing amongst the Kaldorei.

"Our women are the finest archers on all of Kalimdor," the nationalist captain claimed, refusing to use the name Azeroth since it was from the Common language and not Darnassian. "There is simply no way this city can be invaded; our arrows will stop invaders from the safety of the bartizans before they even get in range for our priestesses and Druids to cast spells at them. Even inferior tools such as your gun can be of use from the vantage point you're peering out through there."

Her speech was mind numbing, but she always insisted on treating him and any other mercenaries under her care as if they were incompetent, explaining every last detail to them. Given that many of the irregulars were even more experienced than the regular soldiers, Soraya's pontification was largely unneeded but also unyielding.

Navarion wasn't as tall as his father but still taller than most full blooded night elves, and had trouble backing out of the bartizan. The hallways within the city's defensive walls were narrow as well and just barely high enough for him to avoid having to duck. Soraya's stiff posture didn't help him to feel comfortable as he backed out and found himself bumping into the wall.

"We completed the growing of the walls first, even before the services and amenities in the city due to the new silithid threat; we take defense that seriously. You're very fortunate to have earned a position in this fighting force at a time such as this, yes."

Yes what, he thought to himself. She had thrust yet another lesson in fortification components he already knew about upon him the moment he'd clocked in at the tower registrar below. He hadn't asked a single question.

"Thank you for the answers, Captain," he said congenially, wanting to find a way out of the agonizing conversation but not wanting to put himself at risk of disciplinary action.

"As you were, irregular," she replied politely in spite of the slightly negative term. "You'll prove your worth just yet." Her voice carried a tone of the utmost respect and politeness, but her words were patronizing either way.

Navarion watched Soraya walk back toward the stairwell around the corner and down to the bottom floor of the watchtower built in to the defensive wall. Most of the captain's nights were spent joking or playing chess with some of the other officers, content to leave the members of her unit largely unsupervised. Irrespective of the monotony of patrolling alone, Navarion still preferred to be by himself rather than to listen to Soraya prattle on. The lesser of two evils, he had convinced himself.

Once he was sure that he was alone, he was able to leave his post at the bartizan. Soraya never actually checked on him and in the event that she did and found the post empty, he could always claim that he had to use the bathroom or something along those lines. In a way, the monotony could prove to be a boon on some nights. Sober and alone, it gave the shadow hunter the time he needed to temporarily clear his mind of current worries, ponder his direction in life and even listen to the spirits occasionally.

At the age of thirty four, he was incredibly young for a half elf, but had lived hard and fast like the half troll he also was. His clingy, tight knit family were all quite different from him, by that point in time at least. His five siblings all lived at home for at least part of the year; the two middle children - twins - lived away for periods. Zengu was a restoration Druid living half the year in Moonglade for training and Issinia was a priestess of the moon spending half the year in Darnassus training with Zengu's wife Thandra, also a priestess. Anathil, Tiondel and Sharimara all lived year around at the family's three story home on a large estate on the bluffs overlooking the port of Ratchet. They'd done a measure of traveling, but nothing like he had. He ran away from home twice, at ages eighteen and twenty; for elves such as his mother, such an age wasn't considered fully grown or mature and it scandalized the family.

He'd certainly lived hard though, getting himself into all kinds of trouble with shallow but dependable friends, going on adventurers and doing good deeds here and there. And drinking. A bit too much.

What of his current situation, though? Navarion's father Khujand was a jungle troll, and in his sixties; he'd already outlived the average person of his race and the extra years were likely a result of the powerful elder shadow hunter's voodoo, but for how long would it last? His mother Cecilia wasn't in any better condition: being from the generation of night elves who were already ancient by the time the race's now lost immortality had begun, she was of a rare breed that had nearly come extinct. Extremely few Kaldorei were older than ten thousand years at that point in time; maybe just a few dozen. She probably wouldn't even live as long as his father, even...

...Navarion squeezed his eyes shut at the thought. As much as he loved them, he often became depressed if he spent more than a few months at home, sleeping in the bed he'd grown up in and working odd jobs around Ratchet. His wanderlust had to be sated in order to preserve his sanity, but that didn't meant that leaving his clingy, doting parents didn't cut him with a pain far worse than what even Zhenya could visit upon him.

His sulking didn't last for long. He'd been ambling up and down the narrow halls of the second floor of the defensive walls. Outdoor patrols roved about in the open air above, and unfocused sentinels joked in the rooms on the ground floor below. The space in between was almost always empty, but when Navarion entered a long, very straight stretch of the city's western wall, he could vaguely make out two silver orbs all the way down on the other end. They had to be more than a hundred yards away, bobbing up and down slightly as their glowing light left a trail in the air that was almost hypnotic. He stopped for a moment to look; it couldn't possibly be an enemy in such a fortified place, but caution never hurt and he wasn't sure who else would be patrolling such a lonely stretch of empty halls that time of night.

Footsteps against the naturally grown stone floor echoed against the walls and entered his sensitive ears, informing him that the person was approaching slowly on shoes made from suede. Light feet maintained an even pace, as if the person had spent extra time practicing the way they walked even when not stealthed and sneaking up on an enemy, giving off a sense of refinement. The mixture of colors grabbed his attention firmly, drawing his eyes away from the fact that the person's approach was steady and unhesitating. Slow, steady but approaching him all the same.

The light purple cloak and cowl associated with archers of all varieties of elves stood so vibrantly against the cold stone walls that it distracted attention from the person's face, if not their eyes. As the person continued to approach, Navarion walked forward again, not wanting to seem rude or disturbed. When he took his first few steps, the person did slow down for a bit only to pick up speed again. The silver glow of her eyes - like ninety percent of the warriors, the person was female - became less overwhelming as the gap between them closed. The hood lay loose along the back of her shoulders, just barely revealing hair the color of fresh thistles tied back on a long ponytail. Lavender blue skin matching the color of periwinkles exactly combined with the color palette to generate an overall purple outlook that was simply gorgeous, even from afar. And as the two of them closed the gap even further, she confused him.

From maybe thirty yards away, she began to wave at him. The halls were so narrow that she couldn't see anybody else to wave to even if they hadn't been alone. It was confusing as he knew for sure that he hadn't met the person previously. She waved at him a second time, not frantic but simply trying to get his attention. There was no awkwardness from his end, but he waved back anyway, not wanting the person to feel stupid. Though were there witnesses, he wouldn't have waved back.

Her movements insinuated that she was also young like him - elves could always tell - and her bow wasn't that of the Sentinel Army or Air Force but that of a trainee. Not only another mercenary like him, but probably also someone born after the Third War when immortality ended and the night elven men woke up, Navarion surmised.

At twenty paces he stopped, following the rules of propriety for unrelated people of opposite genders in the culture of the Kaldorei. The extra respect between the sexes was new for him considering the pub crawls and midnight trysts he'd engaged in during his younger years of adventuring in the Eastern Kingdoms, and it took a bit of effort to keep all the rules of etiquette in mind. So when she continued to walk and stopped much closer to him than that, he found her youth and impropriety amusing.

"Hi!" the young pureblooded night elf practically chirped to him while standing with her hands clutching her bow.

Her body language was unassuming and casual, and his voodoo sensed not a hint of nervousness on her. Her ponytail was braided and much more intricate than the Spartan, utilitarian styles of many of the more weathered warrior women in northern Kalimdor. Her quiver was strapped loosely to her baldric, poking out from under her cape as if it were a fashion accessory rather than a carrier for death in flying form. Her cloak hung open, revealing that she lacked armor but her pants and shirt - neither loose nor tight - were adequate for a hunt but not close combat. The material didn't quite cling, but it revealed her figure. Most night elf women were lithe, muscular but feminine and on the thin side when compared to the women of many other races.

The woman before him was curvy to the point of being plump. It was the first time he'd ever seen it in his entire life: a plump night elf. And she was the most fucking beautiful creature he'd every laid eyes upon.

"Um...hi?" Navarion asked curiously, wondering why exactly she was standing there in front of him, beauty or no.

Her relaxed posture when holding on to her bow seemed strange, like she'd be comfortable to continue having the two of them just look each other over, him suspiciously and her...he couldn't quite put her finger on it. Already he could tell she was the furthest person he'd met at New Nendis from hiding herself and her personality, and yet he couldn't read her. It was confusing in a fascinating sort of way.

Full lips broke into an innocent smile, and full cheeks that were pretty despite the woman's complete and total lack of makeup or even foundation formed the shape of two strawberries before she spoke.

"You're Navarion, right?" she asked, not s hint of pretense in her tone. It was as if she didn't find the question to a stranger nosy at all.

Scenarios floated through his head of how this person had learned who he was until a flashback flashed back in his mind. It was quick and fleeing, but enough to make him remember. His pulse temporarily increased as the image of Zhenya taunting him with her lack of respect for his fidelity (she knew he'd worked long and hard to learn the meaning of loyalty after having behaved like a dog in his younger years) with her wandering eyes. A lone sympathetic face gazed at him when she thought he hadn't been looking; the same cute, round face looked at him now and a measure or embarrassment returned.

"How do you know my name?" he asked. Tilting his head at her, he tried to remember if he'd ever seen that thistle ponytail during his rounds on the city wall.

A periwinkle nose wrinkled at him in amusement from her side this time. He did find her behavior weird after a mere four lines of dialogue, but her entire demeanor almost made him feel as relaxed as she was. "Oh, I'm not sure...most of our names are mentioned on the role calls. I probably heard it counted off at some point." This time, the little white lie broke through in her attempt to fight off a smile, and the spirits told him that she at least wasn't a conniving person seeing as how she was unable to hide her true feelings. Before he could say something to figure out what exactly she wanted, the woman extended her hand. "I'm Astariel."

Taking her hand just to break the feeling he didn't have a label for - not tension, not awkwardness, but something else - he shook and felt how limp she let her wrist lay. She didn't resemble the weathered, rough elven sentinels he'd grown used to with their overly formal bows or the troll valkyries he'd encountered with their aggressive handshakes and suggestive, alluring smirks. He found her nature as refreshing as he did perplexing.

"Nice to meet you, then," he said while retracting his hand.

"Same here." She neither exclaimed nor droned, and appeared completely at ease talking to him. It made him wonder how jaded he had become, that her seemingly normal behavior appeared to abnormal to him. She took no notice of his confounded attempts to figure her out, and continued talking as if they were friends and weren't supposed to be patrolling the city's defensive wall. "Where are you from?"

The two of them stood a little longer, him looking down at her and nearly laughing at himself due to his own unjustifiable confusion and her just looking up at him like a person who carried no preconceptions about people she didn't know. To greet him as a comrade was polite, even if walking a hundred yards away from her patrol route to do it seemed a bit quaint and perhaps even irresponsible. Waving him down while approaching was a bit weird. Her personal questions a minute after meeting him were just over the top.

Finding no reason not to tell her, he chuckled at himself internally and tried not to be burned out and questioning of the motives of the other relative youngblood. "I'm from the Barrens...why do you ask?"

"Oh, the Barrens? That's interesting! It's nearby our sacred forests but so different geographically and culturally!"

Her sentence was so quaint that he bit his tongue not to laugh at her. In any other circumstance, he really would have laughed at somebody behaving in such a manner. This time, however, it felt rude to even consider doing so. This Astariel person just came off as too nice and unassuming; a breath of fresh air, he had to admit. That he had to make himself admit it felt sad. There had to have been a time when he wasn't so cynical.

"I'm from Nendis!" Astariel beamed without even having been asked.

Though he hadn't realized it, Navarion soon found himself drawn into the conversation, so at ease did a person not trying to impress or challenge put him. "You mean...you're from a destroyed city?" he asked in confusion.

"Yes!" she chirped in response, which only made him more confused. "I was born here just after the Third War."

History lessons were par the course for someone with a mother as ancient as Navarion's, and he easily put two and two together. "Oh...you were born just before the loss of Old Nendis?"

"Yes!" She almost looked giddy with excitement as he uncovered a detail as mundane as where she was born.

One eyebrow, bearing hair unlike a troll's but short unlike an elf's, raised in suspicion. This woman behaved as if she were a mere teenager but according to her claim, she was more than a decade older than Navarion. The old city had been burned to the ground by the king of all scumbags, Illidan Stormrage, just after Astariel had been born. That would mean she spent the first few years of her life as a refugee; very few people survived the attack but those who did were scattered among the Kaldorei cities already in shock at having lost immortality just a year before that. This woman was by no means sheltered, yet she lacked the taciturn world weariness he and many others did. Was it that pure blooded elves really did mature that slowly?

"Well, good for you for contributing to the rebuilding of the city," he remarked, almost feeling a physical strain as he tried to shove down his pessimistic cynicism. He'd managed to become pretty good friends with Dmitri without suspecting or expecting anything; women should be the same. "You know, my mother once told me that the original city dates back to pre-Sundering times-"

"Oh! Is your mother from the old world?" she blurted out in reference to the ancient world where Kalimdor had been a single, global continent.

"Y-yes, I guess she was." Navarion immediately felt confused by his own behavior. It wasn't the habit of elves or even trolls to offer such personal information when meeting somebody new. He'd dealt with enough shady characters back in his early twenties when part of a guild that mostly busted thieves' dens and pirate coves to know better than to give up aspects of his personal life. A second battle began inside of him to prevent his mouth from telling her too much more. "Anyway, I've heard that this is truly a historic city. Good for you for doing your part-"

"My parents were from the old world too!" Astariel shared without even being asked.

"Oh...that's nice-"

"My mom was from Hajiri and my dad was from Zin-Azshari!" Suddenly, her boisterous nature became a little bit subdued in a matter of seconds, and he could have sworn the woman looked like an energetic teenager despite the honesty in her claims of having been born just after the Third War. "Goddess light their paths," she added somberly, letting her eyes fall toward the ground.

"Bless your parents' hearts," Navarion murmured in imitation of a prayer he'd heard humans saying. Her eyes lit up and he could tell that his attempt to brush the personal discussion aside had only served to encourage her. "So anyway, I mostly patrol the area back there-"

"We should patrol together! That way we can cover more ground!"

He actually tilted his head at her. No person with combat experience would think that such an idea would even remotely make sense from a tactical standpoint. It wasn't like the Sentinels to accept someone lacking experience even as a mercenary, however, and be correctly guessed that the was trying to find excuses to talk to him.

On the one hand, his defensive wall came up. Navarion was mostly well adjusted considering how many years he'd spent fighting in wars and dealing with figurative and literal backstabbere from Pandaria to Northrend and beyond. He didn't have any sort of aversion to casual contact; he'd just learned that mostly people, especially elves, didn't open up that much upon the first meeting with a new acquaintance. Yet on the other hand, Astariel's near total lack of pretense and assumption felt like he had breathed fresh air after spending years in a dwarven mine shaft. Her bright, silver eyes sparkled when her adorably chubby cheeks pulled into a smile. She had a tendency to wiggle her nose when inspiration to interrupt him came into her mind. All of it clashed with the obviously weathered short sword sheathed at her belt in a slightly battered scabbard; she'd obviously fought and possibly even killed before, yet she lacked the certain level of seriousness that always seemed to settle in to the demeanor of people of all races after the first instance of ending the life of another being, neutral or hostile.

Rather than embarrass or upset the friendly yet pushy archer, he allowed her to walk next to and slightly in front of him in the narrow hallway that felt cramped to him but comfortable to her. In a way, he hoped they would bump in to another patrol unit and be forced to break away due to a lack of space. He didn't know why he wished that. Maybe it was because she seemed so nice that he felt uncomfortable in his own skin. To see a person talking to him at such ease and with no wariness or caution at all caused him to question just how stern he'd let himself become after a decade and a half of wading knee deep through the bodies of bad guys and enemy soldiers everywhere. Navarion almost felt like walking next to and chatting with this open, not quite innocent but certainly not guilty irregular known as Astariel was completely out of place, more because of him than her. People like the reformed satyr guy whose name he kept forgetting or Ragnar whose name sounded more dwarven than trollish were where he belonged. Or with the regularly enlisted sentinels, who were as crass and vulgar as any male soldiers when their officers weren't looking. Or with Zhenya.

"Keep it down up there!"

The angry sentinel from the ground floor of the defensive walls below banged some sort of wooden pole against the ceiling, obviously angry that whatever passtime she and her friends were engaging in below had been interrupted. It was only then that Navarion began to wonder for just how long he and Astariel had ambled down the long, empty halls together, her engaging in idle banter and him constantly wondering if her comments and questions were serious or not.

The footsteps saved him from the exchange he wanted to end without knowing why.

"Captain Soraya is coming," he hushed out to her urgently.

He stepped away from her and at first, his odd new acquaintance looked a little disappointed. She furrowed her brow as if considering whether or not the captain was coming their way, but the footsteps from the stairwell they'd just stopped nearby at a junction in the city wall echoed through. Just then, something changed in the already animated elf. A mischevious grin broke out across the formerly shy archer's face and she pulled her cloak around her full body just a little more securely.

"Now you see me!" Astariel hushed right back in a similarly urgent tone laced with humor.

She shadowmelded, an ability of pureblooded night elves due to the blessings of nature; he lacked it himself, as did most of his siblings. Her outline was vaguely apparent to him as she hurried around the bend silently, disappearing just as Soraya reached the top of the stairwell and peeked her head into the interior hallway of the wall at him.

She eyed him up and down, more in suspicion than in attraction (though he smelled a little bit of that as well). After staring him down sternly for a few seconds, she decided he must be alone. "Hearthglen, have you been drinking again?"

"Never on the job, ma'am," he answered honestly. She must have thought he'd been talking to himself all that time.

Soraya looked just a little bit longer as if she wanted to say something else, but raucous laughter from the other women warriors downstairs that was far, far louder than Astariel's voice had been broke out and grabbed her attention.

"As you were, then."

Alone once more after the captain had left, Navarion felt the odd sensation of being watched. The spirits told him it was nothing, and they could neither be fooled nor did they have a tendency to lie. He peeked around the bend and saw Astariel's outline far away, hurrying down another stairwell off in the distance; his long ears picked up the sound of laughter of a different group of sentinels from that direction.

There was no reason for the exchange to feel odd, he told himself. The woman had behaved politely and came off as friendly and open. If that caused him to become uneasy, then perhaps he really had been traveling the world and fighting for far too long.


	5. Haunted

The humming noise made him feel dizzy. Even when lying down, cheek to the ground, body motionless, he felt dizzy. The humming continued in his ears to the point where he worried he might have received damage to his ear canal. Where he was or how he got there seemed less important as he ran a silent, blind check on all the different parts of his body to search for aches and pains.

It reminded him of the mosquito noise young people often complained about hearing at low frequencies adults couldn't detect. The blessing Navarion's mother had taken him to receive at Teldrassil rendered him immune to sonic attacks in addition to status effect magic, but the hum in his ears bothered him nonetheless. For reasons he could not explain, he felt afraid to open his eyes until the hum disappeared.

Slowly, ever so slowly, it weakened and died out, leaving the usual sound of wind when one was outdoors. The air pressure felt high and the air itself was stuffy like he was in a room; the sensation of high air pressure but blowing wind disoriented him even more. Unnatural and eerie, the entire aura around him smelled of negativity.

Remembering his voodoo, Navarion continued to lie stomach down on the ground as he sent his feelers out. The spirits were not subservient to practitioners of voodoo - they weren't necromancers - but people like him, his father, his sister Anathil and even Sharimara to an extent were simply in tune with the unseen world around them. If one were in tune with that world, no sort of sacrifice or secret binding was necessary; all one had to do was listen, and the spirits would answer.

Yet nobody spoke to him. Like all children with the gift, the voices and presences had scared him at first; he was very, very lucky to have a shadow hunter as a father. Quite a few of his kind were mentally ill - Khujand himself had apparently been unstable prior to meeting Cecilia, his godmother Irien once told him - due to spending years thinking they were simply crazy before finally harnessing the power. No, Navarion had learned early on just what those phantoms were that reached out to him in the dark, and he no longer feared the occasionally unwelcome chatter that others could never seem to hear.

And when he heard nothing while lying there on the ground, that truly scared him. A shadow hunter was never alone because the spirits of both the dead and those who had not yet been born were everywhere. He had never been to a place where somehow, at some time, there had been would would be people one day. The silence of any beings living or dead, fel or fey, was deafening.

He opened his eyes. Darkness. Not blackness; black is a color. This was darkness; an absence of light or color. The difference was something he knew he'd be unable to describe to anybody else. Once he did find somebody else.

Forcing himself to his feet, he stumbled a little bit on the way up and tried to take in his surroundings. After having panicked for his sense of hearing, a similar panic set in for his eyesight: there was too much grey in his field of vision. The ground was a light grey, so at least not all was dark - everything above the ground was dark - but the ground was grey. There were no signs of silithid tracks on the ground which was a consolation, but only a minor one as he stumbled up a steep incline. The ground beneath his feet was covered in soft grass, but it felt like hard, packed soil as he shambled. Without any visual cues or his voodoo to direct him, he had no means of knowing where he was going. Very faintly, he could see corpses before him on the ground here and there, but they weren't fresh. By the time he'd walked a few yards away from any of them, they disappeared into the darkness once more and fell out of sight. A strange fog floated above the ground and he wondered if he'd been caught in the eye of a storm on the battlefield. It would explain his sense of disorientation and the eerie quiet and calm. It would also explain the fact that he didn't know how he'd gotten to where he was.

He stopped for a moment to try in vain to look around him. All the ground looked the same and he wouldn't have remembered which direction he'd come from had he not kept his feet facing in the same direction. Everything looked similar, though not exactly the same so he knew he hadn't wandered in circles. There should be trees, but none of them were close enough for him to see. Blinking a few times, Navarion tried to test his eyes and see if they'd been physically damaged but he found no strain or bleariness, and thus no explanation for the lack of color.

The bodies before him were neither of silithids nor of elves. They were humanoids, dead for a long time as if they'd all been knocked out and he was the only survivor. Their gear was cheap like mercenaries; he, Zhenya, Dmitri and Tammie had to be the only irregulars there wearing proper armor sets. He found no blood on the ground; they must have been dead for a long time. Could he really have been knocked unconscious on the battlefield for that long?

As he walked, trees came into view in the distance. He walked uphill, trying to reach higher ground; perhaps there would be more visibility. Tall, arching and reaching toward the sky, the trunks just barely became visible far away from him as he walked. Grey cut into the darkness as even the trunks appeared to have no color. More of them passed by and he noticed how slow he was moving, as if his boots were full of lead. Only slightly tired, he wondered why his body felt so sluggish.

Reliance on voodoo had never proven to be a handicap as the spirits spoke to him even when his mana burned out during particularly long, arduous campaigns. Tracking skills were essential to every traveler, though, and his mother Cecilia had taught him to the best of her ability given the short time he'd spent at home after coming of age and his short attention span at the time. He didn't need magic to know one of the people in the area was alive.

The fog swirled around, but not in the air. It was as if the gaseous formations flowed just inside the surface of every tangible object as he spun around, trying to find the only other person in the area. The grass, the corpses, their armor, the tree trunks; the fog flowed within everything, blanketing it but not moving outside of it into the air. There was no foul magic in the air at all; it made no sense.

As tall as a tree, the figure hoved in from just beyond the darkness. Fog flowed up and inside of what appeared to be a half-giant, bigger than his father and even his new friend Ragnar. Heavy, plodding footsteps delivered the hulking figure toward him, purposeful and unyielding. Panic rose up as Navarion flexed and pumped his lazy, jelly like forearm to let the sickle blade hidden in the contraption on top of his bracer and gauntlet flip out just in time.

A large, overhead swing brought down the tomahawk toward him, slicing through the air at a speed that would have decapitated a kodo. There was no way he'd be able to block the hit head on without the force of the blow snapping his arm in half, and he tried to scoop up the hilt of the tomahawk and redirect the swing to the side instead. The curve of his sickle blade proved true, and the primitive weapon made of flint, animal sinew and chiped stone narrowly missed his shoulder; his arm would most certainly have lost.

The brute continued to push forward, stinging his nostrils as the whiskey on its breath made him shiver. It felt like trying to shove against the Deeprun Tram, and even with the blow deflected the figure continued walking forward, not even making an effort as it shoved him back indefinitely. His nimble elven hands and feet helped him to avoid the swipe of an empty trollish hand, the three fingers bearing a strength disproportionate even for the man's already massive size; an ogre or dragonkin of similar height wouldn't have bore a grip as strong.

Using the push of the swiping hand to create some space between him and his anonymous attacker, Navarion tried to gain some momentum. The giant kept pushing forward, taking big, arcing swings of the tomahawk. Every strike moved at agonizingly slow paces, yet terrified him all the same as he realized it would only take one hit to end him; the force of the giant's swings were enough to cut through solid stone, much less the leather and chainmail Navarion wore.

Scrambling for his holster, he whipped the pistol out just as the tomahawk came down onto his sickle. The blade bent and snapped as did the spring loaded contraption caging it on his arm. His bracer shattered and he could feel the bone underneath fracture as he squeezed the trigger, miraculously blasting the musket ball into the giant's lungs. Like an enormous redwood, the attacker collapsed without crumpling and streams of the last breath tainted by whiskey filled the air like exhalation on a cold winter morning. Navarion fell too, ripping as much of the cage and springs off of his bracer without actually removing the armor piece as he could; he'd need the wound to remain still to avoid fracturing the bone in his forearm further.

Pain never hit him as hard as others due to his blessing, but he knew he had to avoid using his right arm as he propped himself up on his left. Nerves wracked, heart pounding and throat parched, he took his time standing once he realized he was alone again. The flow of the fog in and out of everything affected his perception as he shook his head to try and gain his bearings. The brute that had attacked him shifted,mane Navarion quickly looked in its direction; there was no way it could come at him again, but he wanted to stay on his toes.

Color. He saw color.

Very faintly in between the swirls of grey fog, a dark green color peeked through at him. The brute's hide didn't quite shimmer but against the grey within the darkness, it may as well have. A long, sharp nose pointed down over chapped lips as the attacker sneered, its tusks sharp and threatening even in its death throes. Beady red eyes glared at him, shining in pure hatred.

"May you be the bearer of my affliction," it hissed at him before Navarion realized the attacker had never looked up; in a flash, in a microsecond, it lay face down again as if he had only imagined it talking to him.

The familiar light headed feeling set in right between his eyes as his parched throat stung him. The dryness scratched at his tongue, the inside of his cheeks, his gullet all the way down to his stomach as his head throbbed. His body called out to be sated and the thirst became overwhelming until he almost felt willing to cut his own tongue off in desperation to kill the feeling. Frantic, Navarion stumbled forward, dropping his pistol like a fool in his search for water or even mud if he had to. Anything to avoid giving in.

Damp grass squished beneath his feet, but his puffy fingers from dehydration proved too stiff to wet his hands on them. His breathing became heavy as he tried to find some form of moisture. The sense of want, of need, crushed him as he denied his liver the punishment it desired and began flipping corpses over even to find a bit of blood to vampirise. Any liquid he could find to stop the curse from consuming him.

The damp, taunting grass liquified into waterlogged mud as he slipped and slid, unable to walk straight. His heartbeat began to slow down to a dangerous rate from being deprived, and he resolved to force a drought upon himself if that's what it took. He didn't even notice when part of the darkness took form. If had no color, no shape to differentiate itself from the rest of the darkness around it, and yet he could see it without using his eyes.

It did not offer a hand to help him or a drink to calm him, but it bore not a hint of hostility toward the floundering adventurer. Watching, observing, it waited for him to struggle to his knees on his own. Unmoving and unmoved, it watched him through two eyes that were visible despite having no color, no means of standing out against the darkness. From its temples jutted out two protrusions - whether they were ears or horns, he did not know - topping its relatively slender figure. A single row of teeth from top to bottom formed a polite smile on its mouthless face. The single row of piano key-like teeth made no movement at all as the living darkness spoke to him.

Will you let him win?it asked, though Navarion couldn't tell where its voice was coming from.

The dizziness returned as he fought to stay awake. The being wouldn't hurt him, but he had no reason to believe it would watch over him if he passed out, either. He did not like the way it spoke to him, nor did he trust its motives, but perhaps the exchange would help to keep him awake and fight back to his feet.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Navarion replied out loud, letting the searing pain in his ragged throat fester to help keep him conscious and grounded.

It stared at him a little more, making no effort to help him as he braced his uninjured left hand against his knee. The being didn't taunt him or look at him derisively when he managed to stand up either, every bit the perfect definition of aloofness and entropy. The two of them stared each other down, and the fact that he could sense no want from the direction of the being slightly angered him. It was as if it enjoyed wasting its own time.

You should, it replied. There was no mockery in its voice but the comment was unintentionally irritating.

"I need water." His speech was as terse as that of the living darkness, but his carried a resentment absent in that of his interlocutor.

You need to change, it replied again in a non-argumentative tone.

Navarion trudged away, kicking up damp sod as he hoped to find a river or pond, or even a swamp; anything other than the salt water of the sea would do. "I don't know what that means," he grumbled as he walked away. Truly, the being hadn't done anything wrong to him, but his panic, frustration, thirst and physical injury pressed down and he let it all control him.

Without even moving, the being followed him, everywhere and nowhere as it never left his field of vision. It wasn't trying to follow him; it was simply there wherever he went. You can't continue like this, the darkness explained as he walked, becoming more talkitive than he had expected. You're just doing what already hasn't worked; you'll search until you fall and can search no more.

"There's nothing else I can do," he complained. The weariness shone through in his voice but he didn't care. This thing wasn't his enemy even if it also wasn't his friend. At least the depressing conversation gave him something to focus on.

Although it didn't leave his field of vision as exhaustion overtook him, he could feel the living portion of the darkness withdraw into the mass surrounding them both. Not sympathy but a sentiment very close to it radiated from the being, touching Navarion in a way that confused him. If you think like that, then you've already lost.

The words chilled him to the bone as the being disappeared into nothing and left him alone. It could have been another minute that he wandered through the darkness or an entire year; it made no difference. Without interaction with other people, there truly was no life; being alone meant that there was no self.

The dryness itched at his throat until it sheared his hide from the inside out. A heat lacking any humidity or moisture whatsoever spread throughout him from the sheer friction of so much dehydrated tissue grating against itself. Denied of the poisonous medicine, the deadly cure, his body became dry and flaked all over until Navarion was a pile of ash shaped like a man. He broke apart and dissipated, cinders falling apart as he collapsed and lost his shape. The particles sank into the damp soil,mere taken by the wind or floated into the air as dust motes until Navarion Hearthglen was no more. Unlike the corpses of the fallen thieves scattered around, he left no trace, no reason to even be remembered by the world save as dust in the wind to be swept away and scattered to the four corners of the world.

"But you aren't nothing," Zhenya whispered to him softly. "You're right here with me."

The cinders didn't even form a pile anymore. The wind took care of that along with the steep incline of the soil; more of them tumbled down the hill, catching on blades of grass and soaking into patches of mud and very soon they were scattered too far to ever be collected together again.

"It's never too far. As long as there is someone there who knows you, the pieces can be out back together." The callous draenei female's voice carried a tone of concern that was out of character for her. It was both soothing as much as it was alarming, for she would only speak like that if the situation were very serious.

A portion of the cinders dissolved as they hit the water, lost beyond recovery. The wind blew more into the darkness where they would be gone forever. The number remaining in the air as dust motes soon forgot their former composition, becoming a forgotten part of the world as all traces of him were erased.

"I won't let that happen. I have you, right here with me. You aren't going to fade." She ran her fingers through his mane, letting her neatly manicured nails drag a light, tingling trail across his scalp.

A hand that had disintegrated gripped her scarred, battle weathered arm tightly. The injury that had dissolved along with the rest of him dropped back into non existence as a head which had turned to ash leaned against her bosom. She held her arms around the form of a man who had lost his form, pulling him hallway up off the bedroll and into her lap as she sat cross legged in their tent. She rocked him back and forth somehow, even though he was just dust motes floating in the air.

Ocean salt reached his nose and he could see light peeking in from the tent flap. He had inherited the nocturnal nature of his mother and his work schedule of patrolling by night and sleeping by day had been a welcome transition; Zhenya was diurnal but her habits and lifestyle lended itself to defying nature in more ways than one. The soft waves rolled onto the short to the rhythm of her rocking him back and forth, and Navarion clung tightly to her as he tried to return to the real world. No matter how often they'd started to fight since they'd arrived, he needed her at that moment.

He looked at his right forearm, checking again and again to confirm that it wasn't actually broken. Her light breaths tickled his scalp a little more and he was relieved to find that the only part of the nightmare that had been real was his parched throat.

"You were screaming but your mouth was closed," she informed him as they held each other a little longer. It was the most tenderness she'd showed him since they'd met.

"I'm sorry," Navarion apologized, embarrassed that she'd seen him in such a state.

He hadn't experienced a night terror since childhood, and as nice as she was being now, the reality was that he still wasn't comfortable enough around her to relax into her reassuring embrace. Pushing the pessimism out of his head, he accepted her rare show of kindness and just tried to listen for her heart; even Zhenya had one.

"Don't be."

Off in the distance, light snores could be heard. As reserved as elves were and as much as they preferred to have their own space, they rarely camped alone due to safety reasons. They were still within the city limits of New Nendis on an undeveloped portion of the beach, but he vaguely remembered seeing several other couples setting up their tents a dozen or so yards away before retiring for the night. Nobody else would have heard him, which helped him feel slightly less embarrassed.

When his eyes fell to the multiple bottles of alcoholic moonberry juice, the lethargy left his muscles and he felt compelled into action.

"What?" she asked as he left her arms and snatched the bottles away.

He didn't even answer her and didn't care that he was wearing nothing but boxer shorts as he left the tent. The afternoon sun stung his eyes upon his exit, and he clumsily kicked up sand as he made his way over to the rocks on the beach. The transparent wine bottles did little to shield his eyes from the bright rays, but he still managed to reach the rocks before she could catch up with him.

She could already tell what he was going to do as she tried in futility to catch up. The way draenei had so much trouble walking through soft sand always amused him, but he was too focused on his task.

"Wait, don't!" Zhenya protested weakly, likely knowing that he was going to do it for a reason. "We paid over a hundred gold for all this!"

Navarion poured the wine out rather than smashing the bottles; he saw no reason to disturb the sleep of the nearby campers by cracking glass on rocks while they were sleeping. "It's just money. I can earn more." Ever the devoted half Kaldorei, he tossed the empty bottles back toward the tent rather than littering them at sea; the Druids had a means of recycling glass and paper for future use.

Pouting sincerely, she folded her arms in front of her. She was only wearing her underwear as well, and the two of them stood until he'd had a few breaths of fresh ocean air to ground himself again. She didn't ask him what the nightmare was about; he knew her well enough not to expect her to, anyway. After a long while, he made a resolution.

"I need to stop. I can't go on like this."

"You were fine before you freaked out in the tent," she protested, skepticism breaking through in her voice. "One bad hangover doesn't mean you have a problem."

"I'm asking you; I need your help. I want to stop." He turned to her, knowing that even the emotionally desensitized draenei had empathy within her on some level. "Please, I'm being serious."

She kept her arms folded and continued to stare out into the ocean. Both of them were tired, and they would need to get back to bed if they wanted a good day's sleep before reporting to work that evening. Huffing, waving her hand and turning her nose up, she did her best to traverse the soft sand on her hooves and back to the tent. "I'll dispose of the last bottle," she grumbled, her earlier tenderness quickly spent.

"Thank you," he said as politely as possible while keeping his vision focused on the horizon.

It had been more than an entire decade since he'd been cursed. It wasn't a literal curse; he tried to blame his problem on that for a very long while. It was that shifting of blame that prevented him from admitting to the problem for so long. He'd drank hard liquor as a teenager and learned almost immediately that he had a sickness in his heart; that he'd never touched the stuff again after that was a source of pride. Starting again was a source of shame, and he went in and out of bouts depending on who he associated with and how much idle free time he had on his hands. The nightmare of that fateful day in the Hinterlands when he'd been knee deep in the dead once more at a bandit camp in the mountains served to shove right up in his face where he'd ended up in terms of his personal development.

The Loa wasn't a dream; he'd learned from his father that they often just found dreams a better way to reach out without scaring people. It wasn't the first time since the Hearthglen family's personal Loa had delivered its cryptic messages to him; it probably wouldn't be the last. And those messages that happened to be coherent were never wrong...if only he could figure out what the hell it meant.

Zhenya had been gone too long; all she had to do was bring the last bottle back. Navarion turned around to find her seated back in the tent.

"See? I got rid of it," she garbled in between gulps of the entire bottle of Hennessy just as she finished it off. Her tolerance was like a dwarven coal miner's.

Tossing the bottle outside with the others, she flipped her bra and panties off in two fluid motions and lied back down without even closing the tent flap. As if she hadn't made it obvious enough that she needed assistance falling back asleep, she rolled onto her stomach and arched her back at him, pretending like she didn't know he was gawking.

He shook his head as he went back in to the tent to oblige. Her tenderness aside, she wasn't the person for advice or counseling. Perhaps the exercise would help him recover from the post nightmare jitters that shook him. Closing the tent flap beind him, he pledged to quit cold turkey. If anything, the patrolling gig would give Navarion large amounts of time where he wasn't allowed to drink anyway; if only he could rein in Zhenya's own habits. They'd need to focus for the supposed exploratory missions given the rumors of the impending invasion.


	6. Second Guessing

Patrolling the very top of the defensive wall was always preferable to patrolling the interior or the bottom. It gave an incredible view, and it was easier to interact with other people. No wonder the enlistees would often try to bully the irregulars out of such assignments.

By some stroke of luck, Captain Soraya's unit had been assigned to patrol the top of the western wall that night rather than the interior of the absolutely gigantic walls or, even worse, the bottom perimeter. His presence on the four person team marked her unit as tainted by the lesser respected soldiers of fortune such as Navarion himself, and halfway through his third month on the job he'd begun to realize that his assignment to her unit was possibly a punishment for or even form of disrespect to the captain. Having him in her unit meant that she also stood at the bottom of the list for the better assignments for the patrol units, or that she had even been assigned to lead a patrol unit at all. The increase in silithid sightings and occurrence of a few attacks on trade routes meant that the scout troops were rather active, and outside of actual war time, bagging a few silithid carapaces on the paved highways of northern Azshara were the closest things to badges of honor a soldier could earn. And yet there the patrol units stood, performing a very necessary function but largely unthanked and unnoticed. Regular enlisted soldiers on patrol were to the Sentinel military itself what irregulars like Navarion were to the fighting force as a whole.

No wonder Soraya had resented him so much at first, he surmised. All things considered, she'd been incredibly generous to him if he really was the reason why boons such as this had been denied to her. Ever since his first week when he'd helped to protect the two greenhorns in their unit - he'd since learned that Thresha and Calil were both only thirty years old, practically teenagers by the standards of elves - Soraya had laid off on the insults and open condescension. She wasn't friendly by any means, but she at least dealt with him in a cordial and professional tone. If they were alone, she'd even occasionally flirt with him in the stiff, aggressive way that only a night elf female could, if only due to her own lack of self control when unwatched. She meant nothing by it, but at least is was a sign that she no longer loathed his presence in her unit.

Were he a younger man, he might have responded to her occasional tartish personality flips as well. As jaded and desensitized as he'd grown, especially after having received such attention from women most of his life, he still enjoyed the interaction. If only Zhenya knew how well behaved he was by his thirty fourth year, thirty four years of hard and fast living unusual of even a half breed elf...

...nah, he thought. She wouldn't change even if she knew. She's Zhenya.

He nearly stumbled on a loose stone as he patrolled atop the defensive wall. Worried, he scanned in front of and behind of to make sure nobody had seen him. The last thing the irregulars needed was one of their own slipping up in front of the regular enlisted soldiers; any minor mistakes would turn into scandals used for the egotistical but also insecure sentinels to boost themselves up and denigrate the mercenaries even more. Out on top of the walls, everything was open; other guards on patrol could easily be seen off in the distance as they passed in and out of the battlements, and the few people strolling beyond the forest marking the outer edge of the developed area could just barely see visibly different people like him. It was both an added pressure to pay attention, focus and not slip up during a necessary but monotonous job, and also an incredible gift; everybody on guard duty wanted to patrol the top of the city walls.

Walking along, he could see much of New Nendis almost clear to the opposite wall. Earthen ramparts had been grown from the soil by the priestesses, Druids and wisps, and the stone walls rose up as naturally smoothed, etched and designed rock formations from the bedrock many yards below the surface. Walls so impenetrable were normally associated with Orc strongholds or the very oldest of the troll steppe cities, but as he had once seen during a family trip to Ashenvale, the night elves were capable of growing enormous strongholds out of the planet if they so desired and were willing to put forth the effort. The injection of new blood into the leadership as many his mother's age were passing away complicated things a bit. The younger Kaldorei had more ambition and motivation to make changes and achieve great feats, but they lacked the skill; elves are slower learners than the shorter lived races, and they required more time to hone their skills. As the pre-Sundering generation died off one by one, there was a mad dash to learn from them and push for more information, and the tired and retired found themselves largely in teaching positions whether they desired the attention or not.

His mother...another thought Navarion tried to push out of his mind.

She'd cried the second time he'd left home, and Cecilia Hearthglen never cried; at age twenty, it was slightly less traumatic than the first time he'd left for a bit of adventure yet it hurt her more as the pains of old age caught up with her. Even his father, a short lived jungle troll, remained a little more active than his mother and though nobody in the family talked about it openly, they knew she only had a decade or two left. For someone who had lived as long as her, it felt so very unfair.

Forest lied on both sides of the city wall - the wider, regrown forests of Azshara on one side and the pollution barrier and carbon catching forest lining the other side and providing an aesthetic interlude between the city proper and the high stone walls. Cecilia had spent ten thousand years - not one hundred, not one thousand, but ten thousand - guarding cities like this from threats that never came. She'd even visited the Old Nendis, both before the Sundering when their people were ruled by arcane magic and afterward when they were ruled by the balance. Her stories had made their estate - a naturally grown house and stone privacy wall like a miniature version of New Nendis - a place of pilgrimage for night elves, furbolgs and to a lesser extent some Tauren passing through Ratchet. After having retired from work, she found even more demands on her time from younger generations wishing to meet one of the few living beings who had seen the old world in its primordial state. They would gather around and sit on the floor of the estate's meeting room for guests, refusing to sit on the same level of a woman who almost feared they'd worship her. Paper, aqueducts and multi-story buildings had been invented during her lifetime, and she could remember the first time somebody sliced bread. His mother was an indispensable resource for all the peoples and races of the world, much like his even older aunt Unelia's who had more or less been pushed into the position of mayor of Astranaar by popular demand. Theirs was a dying breed, and as Navarion watched the glowing lights of wisps, naturally grown lamps and nature magic sparkle in the city made of hollowed out, inhabitable trees, he couldn't stop the guilt from setting in.

He didn't know what he was looking for now. The first time he'd left home, he was just acting like a spoiled brat; he could freely admit that fifteen years on. The second time, news of an increase in piracy, slavery and highway robbery lured him to form a guild of like minded adventurers in the Eastern Kingdoms intent on making the world a safe place to travel if factional authorities weren't up to the task. Depression set in after that due to the monotony of working at one of the three Ratchet stables, and he grew irate as news of various crises and war efforts reached the port before the inland cities, and he sat watching the years drift by.

Yet there he was, participating in another campaign also watching the years drift by. He didn't know what he wanted in life or what his own goals were, and he felt almost as empty fighting silithids in Azshara as he did catching and taming raptors in the Barrens. All the while his parents were back home, spending the twilight years of their lives with the rest of his loving, tight knit family. He felt only halfway alive being away from them, restless and irritable whenever he was around them and confused and numb when Zhenya tried to give him sincere but almost always bad advice.

Wow, he thought to himself. That was embarrassingly, unnecessarily depressing. Not drinking meant he had to deal with negative emotions head on, and he'd largely forgotten how to do so.

Two familiar bouncing orbs of sterling silver caught his eye far down the city walls. Scanning the area again to make sure they wouldn't be seen, he ambled forward and wondered how she'd gotten there.

For a month and a half since he'd first met her, the shy in public but bubbly in private Astariel had largely been assigned to even less desired guard duty due to her captain being the only regular enlisted soldier in Astariel's unit. She'd spent much of her time patrolling warehouses during the daylight hours as a sort of goodwill mission to the local civilian population, or literally standing guard in front of supply rooms in isolated parts of the city for hours on end. Thus it came as no surprise that, when she finally ended up assigned to patrol the top of the city wall, and on the same night that Navarion had been, that she basically forgot they were supposed to be standing guard and viewed it as an opportunity to chat.

Her light purple hood remained on the top of her head this time, signaling that even she knew the risk of being seen. The periwinkle face stood out as a very light contrast against the fabric of her cloak and cowl, and even her quiver was concealed this time. She leaned on one of the merlons of the battlement, signaling a relaxed mood despite their technical delinquency.

"Fancy meeting you here," she joked innocently. Her aura insinuated that she was completely calm, unconcerned over the possibility of being discovered.

Loosening up a bit to his own surprise, he leaned up against the next merlon over. Socializing was one of the reasons everybody wanted to patrol the tops of the city walls; unless you were a female officer who could literally hang her weapon on a rack and play backgammon inside the watch towers, those fleeting moments where you could escape the prying eyes of said officers and chat for a few minutes were one of the joys of guarding a wide stretch of open air territory.

"It isn't the first time I've been assigned up here," he quipped, trying to relax. "I guess our schedules never matched up before."

"Well, I guess we won the lottery!" She laughed lightly at her own joke and so did he, despite not knowing what exactly she meant.

One of the many local beetles, big, harmless bugs that glowed at night and drank nectar, buzzed by their heads just as they were beginning to get into the meat of some local gossip she'd heard. They both jumped at the insectoid hum, and her hands reached her bow half a second before his hand reached his gun, giving him a second form of surprise that she didn't pick up on. They both looked at each other as the harmless but crawled around and flew away again and shared another laugh.

"I thought that was one of them!" Astariel chuckled.

"I know, patrolling the top of the wall is supposed to be one of the cushy assignments."

"Oh, did you hear about the hives?" she asked, not giving him enough context to know what she was talking about.

Finding the merlon a little two hard to become comfortable while leaning against, Navarion shifted forward to rest his elbow on the crenel in between. His intention was only to bend over and rest for a bit while being able to hear her better, but she seemed to take it as something else. Startled at first, she slowly leaned a little closer to her original posture, keeping distance in between them according the normal elven rules of propriety she had appeared to flout at times. At the root of it, she was still a shy, forty-something years old youngling and carried herself with a measure of self possession he felt respect for.

"You're talking about actual silithid hives? Here in Azshara?" he asked in earnest, trying to show her he was interested in the topic rather than offending her modesty.

She looked him up and down for a moment. Positive attention from women was quite familiar to him, and he'd sensed vaguely that Astariel liked him the first night they'd spoken, but only in the sense that two attractive people in seclusion might fancy each other as conversational partners and something nice to look at. Her reaction signaled that she either liked him a little more than that, or was much shier than her talkitive nature insinuated at first. Or both.

"Yes...entire hives of them have been discovers, supposedly," she confirmed cautiously, though the mischevious glint returned to her eye as she reached into her hood and ostensibly twirled her thistle colored ponytail between her fingers. If she knew he couldn't see then it was just a nervous habit; if she'd forgotten that her hand and hair were concealed due to awkwardness from her end and thought he could see her limp wristed twirls, then she was being quite a tart by the standards of her culture, he surmised, as amused as he was confused. "It's on the hush-hush for the time being, what with all the civilians among our people and all. A lot of the officers are used to a time when everybody was either an active duty soldier or a minutewoman on call in case the Burning Legion returned, so given all the civilians, they sort of overreact and assume pandemonium will break out at the news."

"Well, it might not be overreacting," he countered, easing in to the discussion in a way that caused her to visibly relax a bit as well. "A lot of the people here were born as a part of the baby boom like you and I were. They've never fought and might lack martial training; they're as much civilians as people of any other race."

"That's so weird, though! I don't know about you, but I grew up with stories about the warriors of the night and now every woman was a one person squadron, and the men only woke up to join in the fight, and everybody was both combatant and laborer at the same time." Her eyes twinkled and her nose wiggled as she reminisced, and he could tell she was the type who enjoyed chatting about their history.

Craning his neck around, Navarion saw nobody else approaching but could sense someone approaching nearby. Someone else. As friendly and pleasant as Astariel was, she didn't seem very concerned about being caught socializing while on duty for what was easily the most disciplined fighting force on Azeroth.

"Well, I suppose that was a different time," he sighed, almost a bit sad to find himself trying to cut off the conversation. "But take a look down there." He swept his hand over the edge of the crenel and motioned toward the town below.

"Oh it's beautiful, isn't it!" She appeared to either be getting off track, or...he couldn't quite read her reaction. "See, there's that bathhouse!"

'That' bathhouse? the paranoid influence of his father asked deep inside. He shoved it away and tried to continue. "Yes, many facilities for the civvies are popping up now. It's great to see, but an overall signal that the Kaldorei have changed. Judging by what I've observed during the path few months while off duty in town, I'd venture a guess that the majority of the people here have no martial training whatsoever."

"Where do you go when you're off duty?" she asked politely but bluntly.

What would he say? He knew why she was asking, and as attractive as he found her, he didn't consider himself single. Perhaps Zhenya enjoyed the ambiguity, but he'd worked hard for a long time to better control his behavior and try to be faithful to someone with a checkered relationship history just like him. Were he single, he'd have no misgivings. And were he ten years younger, he'd be liable to play them both against each-

Navarion cringed visibly at his own thoughts. He was not that person, that lout, anymore. Astariel was a good girl; he could already tell. Maybe she found him dangerous or exotic, but girls like her shouldn't be dancing with boys like him, he thought. He and Zhenya were made for each other, both fallen, both guilty, both a little bit dysfunctional. But if he completely blew Astariel off, he'd lose who did seem like a wonderful friend and a lovely person to be around (if only they weren't on duty). Pressure piled on as he sought a way to dodge the question without hurting her feelings.

"It's hard to get a regular schedule of hanging out, you know...I've been having sleeping trouble. I used to go to this tea house at the military quarter, but I've been finding myself just sightseeing a lot lately." He noticed that she began to lean forward as he spoke, showing a little too much interest as he ostensibly shared his personal thoughts and feelings with her. This didn't turn out exactly like he'd wanted. "The city is huge, isn't it?" he asked, trying to flip the conversation back to her.

"Yes, it's wonderful, isn't it! I'm so glad that my ancestral hometown is being rebuilt, I've been learning where everything is." Her eyes widened in mid sentence, and she appeared much younger, irreverent in her happiness even, as some idea struck her. "Oh! If you like authentic style Kalimdor green tea, I know the perfect place! They have this porch overlooking a moonwell where the dryads like to play. Me and my friends go there sometimes, you should come!"

There it was; she'd thrown the invitation his way. He felt obligated to agree, though the mention of her friends made it seem a little less uncomfortable. "Well, that does sound interesting...my friend Zhenya and I do enjoy tea houses at times, you should let us know if you all are going on a day off." Hopefully, he thought, throwing out the presence of his and her companions would make things seem a little less intimate.

"Oh, is Zhenya another one of the irregulars?"

Caught between a rock and a hard place, he paused. He hadn't thought this out well enough. He couldn't claim he and Zhenya were a couple because the draenei would deny all intimacy with him in public, and probably whisper insincere apologies in private afterward when she needed help relaxing before sleep. As much as he considered himself off the market, and as much as Zhenya had stuck only to jabbing at his ego with her wandering eyes but remaining faithful in the technical sense, the reality was that he couldn't openly claim to be in a relationship. Even if he was.

"Yeah...she and I arrived here together, actually," he answered cautiously, both tense yet strangely, oddly tickled by the verbal chess match.

Astariel must have had a master poker face, or she really was undaunted. "I'm off again soon, so once I am, I'll come find you," she said, not specifying if she meant it in the singular or plural sense.

"Alright then," he forced himself to say and not sigh. "Maybe we'd actually be able to see each other at a time when we aren't being watched."

Not taking the hint, she appeared encouraged. "It will be fun! They have these mint leaves they can put in the tea with-" Astariel paused, eyeing his wrist. "Hey, what's that?"

Almost having forgotten about it, Navarion looked down and remembered that he'd been wearing a beaded bracelet he'd bought from some impoverished furbolg child during the cleansing of one of their villages from fel corruption a year ago. It wasn't even authentic furbolg handiwork; the child had bought it from a merchant from Everlook and resold it to raise money for his family. Having bought it out of pity more than anything, Navarion often wore it without even realizing.

"Oh...just some old bracelet from Winterspring, I guess."

For a second, she actually became a little reserved. Pursing her lips and straightening up her back, she looked from the bracelet back to him as if she were heavily considering something.

"Can I have it?"

Once again, he found himself caught off guard. It was just some cheap, goblin-made piece of crap, and the fact that she'd asked so directly - again, improper for her culture - did put him on the spot. "Sure, just take good care of it," he said while wiggling his hand to let it slide off of his wrist.

To his surprise, she actually didn't reach out to slip if off; based on her behavior up until then, he almost expected her to do something like that. But she watched instead, waiting for him to remove it himself and simply held her cupped palm out to accept it. She took it from him gingerly, setting her bow against the merlon as she slipped it on.

During the past few months, he'd only really seen her in passing. They'd chatted a few times since meeting and he'd seen her around in groups of friends, but circumstance always prevented them from speaking more than a few minutes. But he had seen her enough to remember that she tended to cover more than other night elves. Exposed skin wasn't taboo in their society but neither was covering up; as rigid as they were, they were surprisingly one of the most open races on Azeroth when it came to choosing one's style of clothing. There were certainly set styles and archetypes, but unlike humans who always covered or trolls who disliked covering anything, the night elves largely left that choice to the individual. Astariel was one of the more conservative individuals. Her clothing was neither loose nor tight but she tended to remain covered and indeed, he had only actually seen her neck and full head of hair once or twice.

But he was still a man; he had his ways of checking women out. He knew her body type from the single time he saw a flash of ankle, from the few times he'd seen her wrists, from the instances when her cloak was open and he noticed her waist size. She was incredible, unique and stunning in a way unconventional for elves, and part of that was accentuated by the fact that she never showed much of anything.

When she slipped what was once a furbolg child's bracelet and then his over her own hand, her sleeve that was a darker shade of purple than her cloak slid down. For a split second, he saw a bit of her smooth forearm, thick as he had expected it to be given that she was the sort of full bodied woman he preferred, much like Zhenya who was considered heavy for a draenei female. A spike of testosterone jumped in his system and he fought to quickly suppress it; he might be young by the standards of a half elf, but he felt too old to be ogling exposed skin of a woman minding her own business. Well, she was talking to him, but she wasn't trying to show off. Perhaps it was his half troll genes, acting up in their usual lascivious manner.

Aware that she'd let her skin become exposed but not that he'd seen, she blushed regardless. Chubby, periwinkle cheeks broke out into faint, violet tints and she tried to play it off by pretending to pick at a non existent hangnail. Even by the standards of conservative elves, she was a bit shy about being seen which came off as too cute.

She must have worked hard to fight down her nervousness, as her voice sounded normal when she ended up being the one to break off the conversation. "Now you don't!" she burst out of nowhere.

After a second of not getting the joke at all, he tilted his head at her in confusion. "What?" he asked just as she shadowmelded and slunk away, apparently having been making a joke about her stealth abilities.

Like most elves, she knew nothing of voodoo and wasn't aware that he could sense her giggling to herself as she went the opposite direction on the defensive wall. He waited for a bit out of politeness to make sure she wasn't going to turn around for another joke before walking away as well, smirking at the innocent exchange but hoping that perhaps she just wanted to include him in her group of friends.

"You again?" asked the reformed satyr whose name Navarion just couldn't ever remember. The goat man stood before him in a surly manner as if talking to the half elf sitting on a bench outside the barracks was the last place he wanted to be.

The moon hadn't risen yet and it was unusual for Navarion to be up that early. The highborne Mage who never talked to either him or Dmitri had fallen out of his bunk and after the loud thud, Navarion found it difficult to fall asleep. And so he'd decided to take some extra time to ask the staff sergeant of the men's barracks regarding the rumors of actual silithid hives being discovered...if only the cursed former night elf in front of him would cooperate.

"This is technically the first time I've ever approached you," he tried to reason with the irate satyr shadowsworn or whatever the mutated man's class was called. "We've only encountered each other in group settings until now."

"Mreeeeeh," the satyr hellcaller or whatever the hell he was called groaned as if the conversation was simply agonizing. "Fine. What do you want?"

"I'm looking for the staff sergeant. You know, the guy who sounds kind of like an Orc."

The satyr's furry, animalistic face picked as if he'd sucked on a lemon covered in salt, which Navarion had heard they actually like to eat. It was difficult for him to imagine that those people had been night elves once. "He's over in that hovel between the food dispensary and the cartographer's tent. You can't miss it."

Navarion moved to pass by the satyr to his destination. "Thanks a lot, Barnaby, or Beelzebub, or-"

"Don't touch me!"

Angered, Navarion looked down at the defiant, unafraid goat man bearing a nasty attitude. There were at least two feet of space between them as he tried to pass by, and it was a complete overreaction.

Rather than tell the goat man off and risk receiving lip, getting mad and possibly decking the ornery fel mutant, Navarion just let is slide and walked away, having received the information he wanted. It was literally only a two minute walk to the hovel he had wanted to go to, and since the sun was still out the only people awake in the night elf town were Alliance, Horde and Steamwheedle merchants, sentinels actively on duty and a handful of draenei irregulars. Even the furbolgs were largely nocturnal and New Nendis was mostly silent and full of shops not yet open for business.

From the outside, Navarion could tell that the hovel comprised work rather than living quarters. Truth be told, he didn't even know where the military officers lived. Because genders were strictly separated outside of combat, there were separate staff members for women and men, and while Soraya was his caption during active duty and Lamia was the overall commander of the Sentinel military forces at the city, the male staff sergeant was who he answered to for day to day matters off the battlefield. Ironically, the man didn't tell anybody his name unless they needed to know. He didn't come off as arrogant; just very blunt, direct and not fond of wasting time.

Running his hand in front of the Kaldorei wind chimes to signal his presence, Navarion waited for the grunt signaling that he could enter. Inside, a few steps led down into the hollowed out tree; it was a short, low, wide greenwood too small to be termed an ancient. Most of the area was below ground level, naturally hollowed out as a room lined with a few shelves of books on military strategy and silithid history. The male officer sat behind a desk covered in scattered lists and documents, some of which were being collected by another two officers, both female, on their way out. All three people appeared focused on wrapping up their work as the mercenary stood to the side of the entrance, stooping under the relatively low ceiling. The staff sergeant for all the males wore the same armor he had the day Navarion had been assigned to Soraya's unit. Unlike everyone else he'd met since then, the male sergeant actually didn't appear to remember the tall, biracial shadow hunter bearing both glowing elf eyes and sharp troll tusks.

"Name, soldier?" the male officer asked formally while looking up only briefly.

"Navarion Hearthglen, sir."

"Alright. You're obviously here because you need something."

One of the females stood and leaned closer toward her male counterpart. A common bad habit of elves of all varieties seemed to be misunderstanding how well people that weren't pureblooded elves could hear, something Navarion's human uncle Johan often reported when people made comments about him and Unelia's in Astranaar. Elves could speak in unbelievably quiet voices, but they often believed that unless somebody was pureblooded elf, they somehow couldn't hear speech in a low voice. It made for numerous awkward situations, but in this case it did yield useful information.

"I'll see you at the briefing in a few hours, Sergeant Fyndir," the female officer whispered to the male as she took a handful of papers and excused herself form the hovel.

The man nodded or her and continued scribbling notes as she left, and she patted her fellow female officer on the shoulder but said nothing more as she left. The officer apparently known as Fyndir looked up at the shadow hunter expectantly.

"Sir, I have an inquiry I wanted to make. It's in regard to the rumor mill and talk of the silithid threat."

Fyndir didn't even bother looking up, but his unusually deep voice still didn't carry a pny sort of condescension. "You planning on spinning that mill?" he asked in regard to the rumor metaphor.

"No sir. I only wish to confirm or deny for myself what exactly is going on, so I know what to expect."

The female officer held perfectly still reading a long page of notes written in fresh ink. There was no way of knowing whether she was truly reading or listening in to the conversation, maybe even judging him based on his question.

Fyndir shifted, and a beard as long as Navarion's goatee brushed against the man's chest plate. Eyes closed for a moment, it was as if he were judging whether or not Navarion was worth telling the truth to, or trustworthy enough to hold on to it. For whatever reason, he decided to give at least part of the truth. "Our scouts found a few hives while patrolling the wilderness. We're currently looking at the possibility of sending out exploratory forces next week." The male officer furrowed his long brows as the female shot him a glance, communicating silently. "Whose your commanding officer on the battlefield, soldier?"

"Captain Soraya, sir."

"Four person unit. Two greenhorns," the female officer remarked. She and Fyndir looked at each other a few moments as if they knew something Navarion didn't.

A quick nod later and Fyndir looked up again. "You're our runner. Tell your captain that we'd like her to sit in on a briefing we have at the behest of Commander Lamia tonight."

Just then, three more officers entered the hovel, one of them rather heavily decorated. Fyndir and his companion rose to meet the scarred, stern looking woman and Navarion saluted instinctively. When the female officer who had been sitting there stared at him, he took the message and walked out, leaving the five officers to what looked like an important impromptu meeting. Even if Commander Lamia showed a surprising amount of respect to irregular soldiers like him, such meetings still weren't the domain of a mercenary.

Out on the main, road, Navarion could vaguely see the moon rising overhead and the irritating sunlight gradually fading beneath the edge of the high city walls. The streets were mostly still empty and even the vine bridges above had little to no traffic. The clopping of hooves from behind him caught his attention before he could decide what to do until it was time for duty, and the light touch informed him it was Tammie before the spirits even did.

"You're up quite early!" the single draenei female beamed as she caught up to him.

"I could say the same for you," he said while strolling along, not really knowing where they were going.

"I actually just got off duty. I might not look it, but I'm tired as heck and ready to sleep."

Grinning widely, he remembered he owed her a little jab for an incident at a restaurant a few nights before where, in the middle of all their friends, she'd thrown a crumpled napkin at him and it went in his mouth as he opened it to argue with her about politics. "Actually, you do look tired as heck. And who the hell still says heck?"

"Oh, ha ha shove it," she chuckled while adjusting her messy dark brown hair. She seemed to be leading them toward the barracks she shared with Zhenya, and she honestly did look rather beat.

"Are you alright, actually? I thought you were just keeping watch over the merchant highway out west."

Weary and focused on the ancient of war where she slept, she nodded in affirmation that she was alright but he could already tell there was more. "The bugs just don't give up," she admitted. "They aren't coordinated or skilled, but they just never stop. We killed two swarms this afternoon and three four days ago. Eventually, it's going to start to damage this city's business prospects."

Out of the corner of his eye, a gaggle of relatively young night elf females sat beyond another exit from the military quarter near the women's barracks, chatting on a series of benches. He didn't actually look over, but the color of thistle grabbed his attention momentarily.

"Hmm...yeah. Oh, right. And given all this talk about actual hives, I wouldn't be surprised if things do get a little bit worse."

Reaching the ramp for the women's barracks, he stopped and watched Tammie flop up. "Here's to hoping...yargh...here's to hoping those are just rumors," she yawned while waving to him. He waved back and was then left with at least half an hour to spend before he'd actually need to start preparing and changing for the night's duty.

Two bobbing silver orbs drew his attention once more. Astariel was sitting in a group of five of her friends, all of them from the post immortality generation like her based on their body language and a few of them even civilians.

When he realized she was waving him over instead of saying hello from afar, he exited the military quarter and joined them beneath a short oak tree. At least he'd have something to do plus he didn't want to seem rude.

"Navarion, come sit," she ordered politely while scooting over for him. There was no other place for him to sit, and her hips combined with his shoulders mad it a tight fit on the long sitting log growing up out of the soil.

Her five friends looked at him but didn't giggle, instead acting completely natural. None of them introduced themselves nor asked his name, and they continued their conversation about silithids as if he had been there the whole time.

Everyone in the city, it seemed, had silithids on the brain. Where were they coming from, how were they reproducing so fast, were they planning an even bigger attack. It didn't take much willpower to conceal the information he held about the hives because neither Astariel nor her friends involved him in their discussion. Not until she began resting her elbow on the backrest of the bench behind him did he notice that she was wearing the cheap goblin bead bracelet he'd given to her a number of days ago.

Minutes passed by as he felt almost like she was showing him off to her friends. Uneasy and bored to death, Navarion started to search for ways to escape the little hang out session. There wasn't anybody passing by he could pretend that he needed to talk to, nor could he think of a valid reason to-

Inspiration. "Astra," he said quickly without even realizing he'd invented s diminutive name for her. "I just realized my unit captain hasn't shown her face at the barracks yet. I'm supposed to inform her about an officers' briefing later on." It wasn't a lie, so he didn't feel bad.

Astariel actually didn't seem bothered and her friends didn't make a big deal out of it. "I hope they're discussing this hive problem!" she huffed, unusually serious in front of her friends.

"It's hush-hush," he replied, unconsciously mimicking a phrase she'd used in front of him the last time they'd met. "But I'm sure we'll get word of what they talk about eventually."

Politely bidding them farewell and making a rather easy escape, Navarion hurried back over to the military quarter. If he were to both find his captain and get ready, he'd actually have too little time, not too much. By the time he'd made it over to the men's barracks, he hadn't even noticed Zhenya stalking up behind him and sticking her hoof out.

"Yeouch! Wrong move!" he yelped while she unsuccessfully tried to trip him.

Unconcerned by the impropriety, she briefly tried to wrestle with him in the space between the ramps for his barracks and hers. It was just about the most affection she'd shown him in a long time, and he almost forgot about his duty while pinning her arms behind her back.

"You cheated!"

"We're wrestling, there's no way for me to cheat," he countered, letting her go and almost causing her to fall over.

She continued to walk away after regaining her balance, going up the ramp to get dressed without saying goodbye or even acknowledging him. He walked halway up the ramp to the women's ancient of war to see if she'd look back only to see her disappear out the back and ascend the winding path up and around the tree trunk.

Lingering for only a moment, he went up the men's ramp to get dressed. As he made his way up to his bunk to don his armor, he almost found himself missing Soraya's stiff, hard nature. The woman in his life he had the least amount of attachment to was probably the only one he felt he truly understood.


	7. Giant Onions

"My parents were adventurers too. Maybe that's why I decided to stick to patrolling cities and not really venturing out: so I won't end up like they did."

Astariel, chatty as ever, led the way as Navarion listened to her prattle on about the city and her family background. It helped to pass the time, and at least provided him with a measure of narration about the city that had slowly become home for both him and Zhenya. It only distracted slightly from the natural beauty of the forest.

Similarly to the top of the battlements at the city walls, patrolling the inner forests were a dream assignment for those on guard duty. Huge swathes of the area enclosed by the New Nendis city walls were undeveloped forests, empty save from wisps and the wildlife. It didn't take more than two units to cover it, and after having not seen Astariel for at least another month, it at least provided him a chance to catch up with a new friend.

The separation was better. It made it difficult for any sort of attachment to grow, and things remained strictly platonic. Given all the fighting between him and Zhenya that never seemed to end, almost always caused by her manic hot and cold act, it was the preferred setup for his friendship with Astariel. Whether it was maturity or guilt from mistakes past, he'd pledged himself to taming the self styled but secretly sensitive draenei. The last thing he needed was an object for his wandering eyes to fixate on.

As it was, Astariel also happened to be a great conversational partner, which helped him to think with his brain more than something else.

"Can you believe that my parents actually got engaged before the Sundering even happened?" she asked rhetorically while they both tried to squeeze in between two trees in the wood, her hips and his shoulders once again proving troublesome. "My mom actually waited for him when the men all went to sleep for the first time. He woke up around the time of the Satyr War and they got married at the end, just before he slept again."

"And they didn't have any other kids being together so long?" Navarion asked near absentmindedly. It's not that he was disinterested in the discussion; he had just fallen into the habit of asking since she was more talkitive than him.

She laughed heartily, letting her hood almost slip off as the little ear holes lost their grip on her slender ears. "You know what elven birth rates are like; that, and the fact that dad was always asleep, meant that I'm the first and only." Taking care to hold a tree branch for him, she continued to lead him in the dense undergrowth. "The old fountain is just around the bend, by the way."

"So this...fountain, is it? Your mother told you it had been here at Nendis since the time of the old world?"

At that comment, her eyes lit up; she could possibly be a tour guide were she not a surprisingly competent archer, seeing as how she appeared to be a scholar of the region's history. "Yes, she did! Even in the times when the highborne reigned supreme, the health fountain was there. She relocated here when immortality started and would spend a lot of time here. After immortality when she and my father were finally together again, she used to bring him here sometimes."

An ominous feeling settled in, and Navarion noticed how far they were from any other people. The sheer size of New Nendis was daunting, as large as the legal limits of any other busy transnational port, but less than half of the area was actually inhabited. Because the inhabited parts consisted of hollowed out, livable trees anyway save the few traditional meeting lodges for the huntresses, much of New Nendis just looked like a gigantic, fenced in forest. The serene calm suddenly felt a bit too quiet for him.

"It's a shame we weren't able to bring the others," he surmised out loud as he let her gain more ground than him, pretending to stumble on a rock. "Calil and Thresha would certainly enjoy seeing it, and Zhenya might appreciate it too."

A part of him felt rather presumptuous, arrogant even, to assume there was a hidden meaning to Astariel's words. He detested the paranoia he'd developed after a few bad experiences when joining parties including rogues. The Sentinels employed none, however, as even the nightblades were honor bound, and Astariel was not one of them anyway. When she passed over the comment involving Zhenya without bristling, he almost felt a pang of guilt for jumping to conclusions.

"Oh, I'm sure anybody would. It's a lovely place, isn't it?"

"Huh?" He did a double take when she stopped ahead of him, not having noticed the shimmering light brighter than that given off by the wisps. "Oh, we're here!"

Much of the masonry around the base of the fountain had eroded. In the old world, as his mother had told him, construction was done by hand like the other races did in the modern world. Since Nendis hadn't been rebuilt until now, nobody had repaired a lonely fountain of health in the woods. The water still flowed, however, and he could sense the natural, non-arcane Magic radiating from it. So closely had the undergrowth inched up to the forgotten fountain that there wasn't even a clearing around it; they both had to straddle the trees and the canopy enclosed it entirely from the starlight.

Light blue from the fountain reflected onto Astariel's face, mixing with the silver of her eyes to cast a metallic glow on her bare cheeks; like all women of the post-immortality generation, she hadn't received any facial tattoos; those had to be earned, typically around the first century of a woman's life as part of her coming of age ceremony. Glee flitted across her face as she gazed into the fountain, perhaps remembering some memory of her parents. How lucky he was that his were still alive...if only he visited home more than every few years.

"Do you have any coins?" she asked innocently and without pretense.

Navarion bristled. Women and money were not two things he had good memories of when they were mixed. Paranoia once again taking over, he fought one of many internal battles he found himself involved in when he was around both Astariel and Zhenya, his conscience telling him to entertain her friendly question and something darker whispering to him memories of having been used just as he'd used others.

He felt his coin purse, having correctly guessed that movement would rip him away from horrible introspection. It jingled, and a smile devoid of greed spread across her face. "I have some copper coins I brought with me from Everlook," he admitted, trying not to sound suspicious. If she took offense, she didn't show it. "I guess I don't really need them here, seeing as how the Sentinels use paper money."

Holding her hand out, she should have looked presumptuous yet he could see nothing but a friend borrowing something bearing a significance other than monetary. He took a pile of copper between his scrunched up fingers, which ended filling the palm of her much smaller hand. Although she grew up during a time when the night elves were still part of the Alliance and ostensibly had seen metallic money as a child, she would have grown used to paper money considering the fact that switching to that format was part and parcel of her people once again striking out on their own some time later, just as they always had been. She flexed her palm and watched the coins slide around in her hand as if she'd never seen it before, viewing them more like toys than currency. In her free hand, she took the first of the copper coins and flicked it into the water of the fountain with a limp wrist. It made a plunking sound as it broke the surface and sank fast, reflecting more of the starlight before it hit the bottom.

Grinning like a giddy child, she offered him one of his own coins back in the same dainty, limp wristed fashion. "Be careful what you wish for!" she snickered in an attempt to intentionally sound ominous.

Grinning back at the sheer silliness of it, he wondered how anybody else would react were they to see the two of them flicking coins into a fountain in the middle of the woods, but he didn't actually make a wish. They took turns until he had become twenty three copper pieces poorer, but had found the ridiculous endeavor rather relaxing.

"What did you wish for?" he asked.

"What? Don't ask me, if I tell then it won't come true!" she exclaimed, raising her voice in mock surprise.

"It must be something important, then," he joked. "I wished for new socks."

"No socks for you! And yes, I wished for the most important thing!"

"Which is?"

"No," she laughed, shaking her head. "Not telling."

"Okay, don't," he laughed right back, and she actually huffed in anger when he gave up on pestering her so easily. "Have you told any of the priestesses about this place? So they can restore it?"

Pensive for a moment, she shook her head again. "Eventually they will, but in a way I feel like it will become less special. There's something nice about it only being for the special people in my life."

"Like your mom?" Navarion asked nervously. Her demeanor was plain and not suggestive, but her wording made him uncomfortable again.

Her eyes widened and this time, she was the one caught off guard. "Goddess light her path," Astariel prayed, ever mindful to wish her parents rest in peace. When she continued to stare in the fountain, he realized that he might have made her feel bad in an attempt to reduce his own discomfort, and then he felt bad, too.

"Goddess light both their paths," he invoked. Even if he wasn't practicing the faith of Elune nor the Loa, he still had a certain level of built-in guilt his aunt Unelia's had instilled in him to automatically pray for the dead.

Astariel pursed her lips, obviously trying to hold quite a bit back. "It's been almost forty years since they were taken from me, and I still remember it like yesterday," she murmured into the fountain; he got the distinct feeling that she might have only been vaguely aware of his presence.

"Aw, look, I'm sorry that I menti-"

"You can never really get over it, you know? The generation of our people born before immortality have already mostly died of old age. I should have expected them to pass away before I was ready, but not the way they did. It was so sudden...so..."

When her voice trailed off and she shut her eyes, he got the feeling that she wanted him to finish the sentence for her. Torn between supporting his friend, letting things grow just a little too close between them and falling into a guilt trip of his own for not visiting home enough, he tried to be a supportive friend and comrade.

"It felt so unfair, but you feel spoiled for calling it that because other people also lost their parents while young so you feel guilty for feeling sad?" Technically, Navarion cheated by listening to the spirits; he couldn't claim to naturally be that empathetic or perceptive to the feelings of others, yet another dependency created by the advantages of voodoo.

If her jaw had dropped any more, it would have fallen right off of her skull. It was almost over the top, but the spirits talked to him once more and told him she was sincere. "I...oh...it's..." She began shaking her head for a third time, obviously distraught, and he could already feel the waterworks coming, voodoo or no. "It's not fair!"

She pinched the bridge of her nose at first, fighting to contain herself even as the tears started to trickle down cheeks that looked cute no matter what sort of mood she was in. Her back didn't heave and her breathing sounded normal, but she was tense and unable to speak out loud in the beginning.

Not knowing of any other appropriate action, especially for a friend, he put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her a little closer. She turned into him and hugged his chainmail, letting her forehead rest against his chest. Muffled, choked sobs rang against him as he gripped a tree in his free hand, pretending he needed it for balance. The natural instincts he had to comfort a crying female clashed with his guilty attraction to her and he tried to balance both an appropriate sympathy for her feelings against reminders of how hard he'd worked to convince Zhenya to calm down and stop trying to intentionally piss him off with stories of her past relationships due to her constant, near schizophrenic suspicion about his fidelity all the time. All the while, the beast inside urged him to hold her a little closer, whisper his condolences into her long, slender ear, and...other thoughts he refused to entertain.

"I wish I had the right words to say, but...maybe there aren't always exactly right words for the loss of parents," he started out loud, sincerely at a loss for how to console an orphan who retained mental scars into adulthood. "The best I can say is that everything happens for a reason...that divine wisdom, or whatever flavor of belief one wants to call it, is incomprehensible to us...if it weren't, and we could understand it, then it wouldn't be divine. There could be remifications we couldn't even imagine if things had unfolded any differently." She continued to cry into his chest, and he tried to find the right words to make her feel better, for himself as much as for her. "But if your parents could see you now, I'm sure they'd be happy at how far you've come, and how you're fighting to preserve the heritage of your people after they spent so many millennia defending it."

Sniffling into his chest, she still felt soft and limp in his arms but he could sense the tense sorrow begin to dissipate. "T-they say that...when heroes die...they join their predecessors as stars in the night sky above. They shine more brightly on some nights, adding to the celestial bodies we can see." Talking about Kaldorei religious beliefs seemed to calm her down, giving her something objective and academic to focus on. "For a one time I doubted, but I find that when I stand near the ocean...I can see them. I know it's them."

His own passion waning as hers did, he felt a little safer actually engaging her. "You mentioned that they passed away at Hyjal, shortly after the Cataclysm. That's very far away from the ocean."

"I know; it seems silly, right?" she chortled into the chainmail covering his chest. "But that's the only time I can see them. It makes patrolling New Nendis all the better for me."

A soft hand, firm from gripping her bow but feminine in a strong way, pressed against the side of Navarion's torso. He tensed in fear and in preparation for pushing his crestfallen friend away in her moment of sorrow for Zhenya's sake, but to his relief Astariel was only pushing off of him to stand up straight. So thick was the underbrush that she literally didn't have anything else to grip and their unsure footing in the tangle of roots and stones made it more acceptable.

"It isn't silly," he retorted as she followed his lead in pulling back and searching for another branch to balance against. "Perhaps the significance will make sense to you at a later time; a lot of these signs can be cryptic at first."

"I guess they can be." She looked back at him over her shoulder while leading him out of the woods, an expression on her face that didn't make him uncomfortable but that he still couldn't read. Over high jutting roots and under low hanging branches, they loped like lemurs in order to reach their proper patrol route again before being caught socializing while on duty. "You're so lucky, you know. Your mother is from a rare breed these days."

This time, his discomfort wasn't due to Astariel per se so much as her touching on a sensitive topic for him. "Yeah...mom is...really great. It's like having a moving library for a parent," he joked half heartedly.

"I think I've heard about her before, you know."

Surprise took him before releasing its grip; indeed, Cecilia Hearthglen had become well known in their immediate area, at least, due to the resource many night elves saw in her vast life experience. "Did your mom know my mom?"

"No, I don't think so. They were both pre-Sundering so they probably fought alongside each other, but not enough to remember each other if they did. Their service to nature was so long..." They broke out from the forest at that point, walking along its perimeter and surveying the narrow, naturally paved road weaving a path in between the trees. "So was she really responsible for helping our people to clandestinely open a consulate in Ratchet before we even dropped out of the Alliance, or is that just an urban legend?"

"One hundred percent fact," he said while grinning softly. Now that topic, he could enjoy. "She and my dad were both responsible. It was from a plan they hatched along with Keeper Ordanus of Raynewood, Goddess light his path, the first time my dad visited Ashenvale as a legal guest. Most of what you've heard is probably true."

Dumbstruck, she slowed down to walk side by side with him and stared ahead in awe. "Wow...it's like a piece of history in your household. Your parents helped contribute to the start of our independence from the blue and gold," she remarked in amazement.

"You could say that. Our household was always full of visitors from the Sentinels when we were growing up. Some of them came on official business and others just wanted to ask her a hundred and one questions about everything she's seen over the millennia. But we always just viewed her as mom."

The two of them walked in silence, stunned on her part and melancholy on his, as they rounded another bend on the patrol route they'd decided to share in the inner city forest. Are a few moments, she spoke candidly and probably without pretense as she always did. "I hope I can meet your mother one day," Astariel sighed wistfully.

The muscle in the back of Navarion's neck tensed slightly, and he wondered how Zhenya would react were she to have been spying on the exchange. And knowing her, she would spy if she could. "The doors of the Hearthglen estate are always open for visitors from the Sentinels, during the twilight hours at least."

Thankfully, Astariel said little else as they finished their rounds for the night. Were she to push even further, he might just find himself wishing he'd been assigned to clean up silithid mounds instead.

"No more patrol duty for the next few days," Captain Soraya practically grunted at him. "We'll be cleaning up more silithid mounds like this instead."

Stealth conscious as always, she'd shoved Navarion into a bush while she, Thresha and Calil shadowmelded and observed the movements of the silithid workers carrying out a process of corrupting the once grassy coastal plain half a day's travel from the city. Soldiers, their carapaces jagged and heavy, stood watch, vaguely sensing the six amassed units of night elven infantry surrounding them. It was almost hypnotic to watch them buzz as they carried out their work of desecrating nature. How foolish were so many who thought only humans and orcs could destroy the environment so recklessly...

"Great fun," Navarion quipped from his hiding spot, always the odd man out given his inability to shadowmeld and the Sentinels' strong preference for sneak attacks and assassinations.

"Shush!" Soraya hissed at him. Her voice and face didn't bear spite so much as seriousness; the silithids already looked agitated as it was.

Just like the rest of his unit, the other five units held back; the strike force was in territory which hadn't been surveyed since the latest silithid infestation. It was no coincidence that on a mission where the army wasn't sure what they'd be facing, they sent units that included mercenaries when none had been sent out before. Each of the five other units included once irregular soldier like Navarion, and the only two from the six who could shadowmeld were the reformed satyr and the highborne Mage. The Mage in particular appeared disgruntled; the night elven practitioners of arcane magic were allowed back in to Darnassus when their people were still a part of the Alliance. Ever since the Sentinels had separate as their own faction again, the mages were once more the victims of discrimination, and the man found himself unable to properly enlist. Even the satyr was less standoffish and taciturn.

The three draenei - Zhenya, Dmitri and Tammie - all crouched in the bushes much in the way Navarion had. Lambs offered up for the slaughter, as Tammie had claimed. Thankfully, none of their commanding officers forced them out front before the others struck; at least on the ground, they were treated fairly.

Loudly, Soraya - the highest ranking officer among officers who had been assigned irregulars in their units - whistled in a frequency too low for the silithids to hear. Their primitive nature made the big bugs easy to take out unless they had overwhelming numbers on their side. And of that, the silithids found themselves in no shortage.

In tandem, Navarion began to fire and then reload his gun at the same time the highborne Mage rained arcane blasts onto the very furthest ranks of silithids in order to scare them forward into the slaughter. The soldiers charged first, and Navarion began planting his wards while reloading. Even the drones moved forward, too afraid to move backward into the rain of arcane missiles and perhaps sensing that the two men would be easy prey once the soldier silithids fell and paved the way.

The night elven infantry flanked the silithids shortly thereafter, throwing the insectoids into complete disarray as their heaviest soldiers were struck down by glaives first. The three draenei charged head on after that, driving the frightened drones back into the rain of arcane blasts, their numbers being cut to a handful by the infantry all along the way. The entire skirmish was over in less than five minutes, and not a single silithid escaped.

After the fact, Navarion collected his wards while the group's resident balance Druid, Pontus, took a slow walk with Soraya and two of her fellow officers up and down the mounds which hadn't already been blown to bit by the Mage or hammered down like pegs by Zhenya just because. The others either secured the perimeter or waited for Navarion to heal them from the few injuries they'd incurred.

The whole plain was bordered by forest on two sides, ocean on one and mountains on the last. The pollution that lingered over the southern peninsula of Azshara was absent there in the north, and a swell of pride filled the half elf's heart as he stood next to Thresha, Calil and Zhenya. It was a beautiful scene, so breathtaking aside from the bug mounds that Navarion's mood didn't even deflate when Zhenya pulled her hand away from his attempt to hold it.

"It's amazing, isn't it?" Navarion asked rhetorically while briefly counting the stars over the open field.

Not understanding what he was talking about, Zhenya pretended like nothing had just happened between them and nodded toward all the dead silithids. "Not to me. You shouldn't doubt my prowess."

His wistful stargazing was temporarily interrupted by her strange comment. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I think you'd better recognize." As always, Zhenya's tone was flat and her expression was hidden behind her helmet. There was no way to tell whether she intended it as a joke or something else.

"Recognize what?"

"I destroyed the highest number of their mounds," the paladin beamed. She slung her big warhammer over her shoulder instead of simply leaving it attached to the weightless carrying mechanism on the back of her body armor, as if she wanted to show off. "The mounds are where they keep their eggs so they can reproduce. I made sure that they can't do that."

Not upset but a tad bit ornery, Navarion decided to take revenge for her having yanked her hand away from him. He'd spent most of their weird, label-defying relationship being the mature side; he felt he could take a little jab. "You require validation of your actions by others in order to have a sense of self worth," he quipped quietly into the side of her helmet.

In a flash, she rotated her head to stare daggers at him and he could tell that she had both been stung by the comment and shocked that he would even make one like it in the first place. Two golden eyes a similar color to her armor and warhammer glared up at him, the gears turning inside of the paladin's mind. She'd been caught off guard, and he liked it.

The two of them stood next to Thresha and Calil a little while longer as the officers examined the remains of the battlefield. The two pureblooded night elves were engrossed in a low conversation about the best points to strike silithids for quick kills, getting along together without any of the discomfort Calil had displayed in private. Maybe the younger man had actually taken Navarion's advice and spoken from his heart, the half night elf thought.

The bump on his wrist as Zhenya actually inched closer to him alerted him to her reaction. Rather than huffing and puffing away in anger, she almost seemed to have been temporarily subdued. "Don't talk to me like that," she whispered in a pleading rather than demanding voice.

"I'm sorry," he whispered back. This time, she didn't pull away when he reached for her hand. He went back to staring into the stars again as she looked at him, and instead of feeling guilty Navarion merely wondered as to why they both responded to each other the most passionately when they treated each other poorly.

"You always look to the same part of the sky when you're not around a large number of people. Why?"

This time he was the one who rotated his head to the side quickly. Zhenya wasn't stupid, but she certainly wasn't deep, nor introspective. Her eyes had the look of sincerity, inasmuch as eyes of a single solid color could evoke an emotion. "When night elves die, they believe that those who distinguished themselves as heroines or heroes in life join the constellations as new celestial bodies," he explained softly, letting his guard down in reaction to her own softening. "In some cases only their loved ones can see it; in other cases, only their comrades. A few are claimed to be visible to all. But they're there."

Zhenya had made her faith in the Light, the religion of draenei, humans and high elves clear to him, and given the fact that Navarion had been raised by two parents coming from two different religious backgrounds that neither of them practiced regularly, he was hardly a devout person himself. Regardless, he was sensitive to criticism of either the Loa or Elune and braced himself for one of Zhenya's typically brash, thoughtless comments. Instead, he was treated to an indifference that by her standards was polite.

"You must see someone who you like in that part of the sky with the stars that look like a giant onion," she said flatly without laughing or mocking.

It was probably the best realistic reaction he could have hoped for, and he even felt a little disappointed when she finally let go of his hand. The conversation among the desecrated mounds appeared to be winding down, and Thresha and Calil both quieted down rather quickly.

Conferring for a few moments, the officers returned to their units for a series of short meetings and Zhenya joined Pontus and their unit's captain a few yards away. Soraya looked winded when she faced her three troops, but not from the battle itself.

"Captain?" Thresha asked curiously. Worry laced both her and Calil's faces.

"These mounds are no more than a week old, apparently," Soraya explained. "The silithids are expanding at an alarming rate and ripping up the landscape while they do it. It will take Pontus at least two days here at this spot to regrow the soil and vegetation without the help of a priestess and wisps."

Calil looked down, his elven, environmentalist heart saddened. "It probably took them that amount of time just to dig in and start breeding."

Their captain only nodded slowly, wiping mound dirt from her cheek. "These aren't just predatory swarms looking for traveling merchants to eat," she sighed in exasperation. "The silithids are expanding into new territory. We have to corroborate this with other reports Commander Lamia has received, and none of you are to repeat this, but...we might be looking at a full scale invasion."

Only the pinch to his ass from Zhenya broke Navarion out of his stupor. This wasn't going to be the simple city patrol job he'd expected it to be.


	8. Flashback

All was quiet in the Hearthglen household that morning. Nestled behind high, naturally grown privacy walls of moonstone on the bluffs overlooking Ratchet, the palatial estate was part of the diverse flavor of the neutral port city. The walls looked like those of night elven strongholds built in hostile territory save the Darkspear style decorative shields on either side of the gate. The very top of the three story house was just barely visible above the wall, its Kaldorei style arches visible to all throughout the north side of the burgeoning, lightly industrialized city. The garden of Stranglethorn ferns, Ashenvale pines and rare herbs could only be noticed up close, and it all served to provide the tight knit interracial family a measure of privacy.

The man of the house having long ago adapted to the nocturnal lifestyle of his wife, the head of the household, morning was a time of quiet. Even the sprite darters they raised out back in the garden were mostly inactive at that time, and the two parents, single godparent and four of the siblings all lied in their respective sleeping quarters. The fifth was away at work, honing her craft as a priestess of the moon in Winterspring.

Only the sixth sibling stood awake that day, restless at a time when his nightstalking eyes wanted rest. Bright silver illuminated the darkness of the back porch that sat partially covered by the canopy of their garden, scanning over his travel bags. Two long bags were already full of every supply and article of clothing one would need when traveling through the wilderness. His armor had been donned and his weapons sheathed; Empress II, the frostsabre he planned on gifting to his sister in Winterspring, had been bathed, groomed, fed and prepared at one of the several stables on the outskirts of the main city. By all marks and measures, he should have been ready to leave.

And yet there he sat, examining the flyer written in Darnassian for the third time like he'd never seen it before.

His family hadn't always lived such an upscale lifestyle. His mother and father, a night elf and a jungle troll, had to fight battles both ideological and physical just to be together; the period of time in which they met was vastly different than the Azeroth they now lived in. Racism and factionalism abounded, and outside of the goblin cities they both ran the risk of being hamstrung by angry mobs just for exercising the free choice to be together. They'd spent years saving money for the duplex they'd bought along with his godmother Irien and then worked odd shifts in order to purchase the empty plot of land overlooking the city back before most of the development took place. Cecilia and Khujand had worked hard for the life they provided their children; far harder than those children would ever have to work. And therein lied the problem, Navarion thought to himself as he read over the flyer one more time.

'The Sentinels need YOU' read the caption below an illustration of former High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind, Goddess light her path. A picture of a crushed silithid carapaces at under one of her besandled feet and the skull of a demonic infernal under the other. Flipping to the other side, details of the outreach program that the Sentinels targeted toward night elves, dryads, Tauren and even draenei living outside of northern Kalimdor detailed the threat to all the reclamation project planned for the growing and mostly civilian population. Gone was the era where every night elf woman could toss a glaive and ride a sabre and ever night elf man could heal some damage or deal some in animal form. The entire system of government had changed, and the theocracy backed up by a military dictatorship had found that simply clamping down on internal dissent did nothing to ward off external enemies. They needed more soldiers and fast.

Navarion's parents had been adventurers at one time. Even his father, as short lived as Darkspear tended to be, had earned his mettle as a gifted shadow hunter much earlier than most showed true skill with voodoo and blades. Khujand had taught Navarion and the oldest sister Anathil everything he knew, and the youngest sister Sharimara part of what he knew. Even Tiondel, the youngest brother who had no aptitude for any sort of magic whatsoever, could at least commune with spirits if he needed to.

Navarion's mother was a whole different ball game, though - both from his father and every single other living being on Azeroth. Cecilia was already ancient, several millennia old even, when immortality had just begun. By the time it had ended, she had become part of the most skilled, experienced, elite fighting force their part of the universe had ever known. There simply wasn't anything she hadn't seen before, or that didn't resemble something she'd seen before strongly. Nothing scared her...save the thought of being separated from her family. After twelve thousand years, the loss of her immortality affected her personality to a great extent; her biological clock rang like mad and she just barely gave birth to the sixth sibling before menopause set in. One by one, she then watched other night elves of her generation die off from old age, and every day she was reminded that her children would continue to live on for centuries after she and her husband were long gone. The stoic, cold, weathered, even grizzled veteran of every single major conflict of the planet's history became emotional and clingy in her old age, endlessly doting on and henpecking not only her husband but their six children and even the children's godmother as well, herself a night elf with a few more centuries ahead of her.

Navarion had been raised in a loving,marring household providing a high quality of life and support for whatever educational and career choices he and his siblings wanted. He was spoiled...and he absolutely could not stand it.

He had been eighteen years old the first time he ran away from home. Signing up for a contract providing security for Steamwheedle Cartel cargo ships, he tasted blood for the first time when raiding and then scuttling a real live pirate ship. Months of taking out slavers, smugglers and all sorts of international criminals led him to abscond and seek further adventure as a mercenary for hire, blazing a trail of broken contracts, broken promises and broken hearts all up and down Kalimdor. When Irien finally tracked him down after a year and dragged him home by the ears, his parents promptly locked him in his bedroom while thanking their creator above that he'd been returned to them and assumed he'd worked the wanderlust out of his system.

He had been twenty the second time he ran way; his father might be a short lived troll, but for his elven mother twenty was more or less still considered a child. The warrior of the night with ten thousand years of experience under her belt actually cried upon his departure as he found out three years later, when the years of friendships forged and shattered had begun to wear on him. Coming home to an angry but nevertheless relieved family, they all had assumed that Navarion had worked out of his system whatever had possessed him to run off and form a guild with a bunch of strangers on another continent in the first place.

They did not understand him. He did not want to be a spoiled, fortunate child; he idolized his parents so much that he wanted to prove his worth without their help, just as they'd gotten to where they were without help. He tried many times to tell them that running off on his own was the only way to prove he wasn't just a pampered, privileged bourgeoise pretty boy; the only way to show that he could be like them. Since the family leaned more toward his mother's culture, the girls never stayed at home much, being the brave, assertive Kaldorei women they were. Anathil traveled much of the time to maintain the family's business contacts and keep orders coming for their rare herbs, trained anti-magic sprite darter pets and whatever Irien had dragged in from the auction house. Issinia remained engrossed in her studies, working hard to fulfill her dream of being the first woman in the extended family to become a successful battle priestess. Sharimara, just as rebellious as Navarion, managed to contain her wanderlust for the sake of staying beside their parents for however much time the couple had left; once they passed on, nobody expected her to remain at the house.

His two brothers also weren't around much. Zengu was the only Druid among the siblings; having married one of Issinia's colleagues as the temple, he spent much of his time between Moonglade and Teldrassil. Tiondel was an alchemist, having also been trained by their father and perfectly content to sit back and hone his craft. The pressure was on Navarion, in that case, to eventually lead the household. His biggest, most nerve wracking fear was to not live up to the Hearthglen family name. And sadly, not a soul on Azeroth seemed to understand that.

Folding the flyer carefully on the off chance that he forgot the directions on where to enlist, he stood and prepared to leave for the third time. It had been years since he'd returned home, and the interim had been spent working various odd jobs he'd gained through his family, compounding his feelings of inadequacy. He'd tried capturing and taming raptors for Thunderhorn, his father's old wartime buddy and one of Ratchet's stablemasters, but he'd already had enough of shoveling shit and cleaning out eye infections with the family's sprite darters. Their parents had taught him and the other children the basics of combat save the pacifist Zengu, and he'd tried his hand at local bounty quests in the Barrens but that didn't provide stable work. Because the family had a bit of a reputation to maintain in the city, manual labor and service positions were out of the question. And as much as Irien tried to train him, he just didn't have the skills for the auction house that Anathil, Sharimara and Tiondel did.

Navarion knew two things well: herbalism and fighting. And his parents already had the first one handled. Only so many years of feeling useless could he bear before the itch to prove himself once again called out to be scratched.

Breathing deeply, he turned to take up his travel bags.

He swept to the side to face behind him.

He looked in to the back door of the family's villa.

And Cecilia was already standing there, a bathrobe worn over the top of her long pajamas.

She looked sleepy, she looked downcast, she looked resigned, but most of all she looked disappointed. Nobody piles on the guilt like a night elf mother. And before either of them even had the time to blink, his heart sank so heavily that he felt like his pain at once again having to cause her pain would overwhelm him to the point of not even allowing him to speak.

Mother and son stood and looked blankly at each other, both of them working hard to keep their emotions contained. Cecilia's eyes no longer glowed like those of other elves; health problems coupled with a poor lifestyle in the first decade after immortality had ended had worked together to dull the shine and make her eyes look much like a human's, if more delicate and crystalline. Unlike with his siblings and even his voodoo-empowered father, Navarion didn't need to search closely to see her pupils and know where she was looking; as was plain to see, Cecilia just looked down at the naturally grown floorboards of the back porch. Though his personality wasn't one given to self-hatred, he could feel a rare wave coming on as he fought to explain to her that he still loved them, he was still coming back, their home was still his home...but he had to go. This was something he had to do for himself.

"You're leaving me again."

His mother didn't even bother to look up when she spoke. Like most women of their kind, her voice sounded like wind chimes but with an added husky sound. To their father, it was alluring; to Navarion and his siblings, it always stood as a reminder of her past health problems and the living hell she'd gone through to become stable enough to raise a family.

On the first few tries, no sound came out of his mouth when he tried to speak, so much was the mental stress of having been caught. She wasn't supposed to have found him there; nobody was. The plan was for him to sneak off in the day - the time when they all slept - and to write back to them of his adventures, doing his best to make them all proud. Eventually, he uttered a few words by sheer power of will.

"I'm coming back, mom."

Breaths as light as wisps floating in the air sounded off from her nose, not outwardly indicating that there was anything wrong. Tense from the lack of tension, wished for her to say something, anything, to break the silence. The moment she spoke again would be devastating to them both, yet he hoped for it all the same just to get the pain of separation over with.

"You came back last time," his mother sighed heavily. "But it still hurt."

At the age of thirty two, he felt too old to cry; it would be ridiculous. But for the first time in many years, he felt the pressure behind his eyes as he fought to control the muscles in his face. Blame that had been instilled in him by a culture based on honor and dignity fought for control whenever he was in the presence of his mother, and his sense of individuality narrowly won out against the communalism of the children of the stars.

"It's going to be alright, mom; you'll see," he lied to both her and himself. He reached forward to take her by the shoulders, and she neither leaned in to him nor pulled away; neutrality was her being at that moment. Despite her obvious displeasure, he tried to hug her the best he could. "It's a brief campaign, and then I'll be right back." A light bulb went off in his head. "You know, I never said it would be the last time when I went out before."

There was no resentment in her soul; Cecilia was never spiteful or passive aggressive. She didn't make any witty comebacks or smart remarks. She only nodded into his arms, seeming to revel in the warmth of her oldest son as she watched him walk away once again.

"Well, I'm telling you this time, mom. I swear to you in front of the Goddess and all that is holy right here and now, this is it. When this is all said and done, I'll hang up my riding gloves for good. No more questing beyond the northern Barrens." He pushed away and tried to look her in the eye, hoping, pleading that she would allow some glint of happiness to shine through. "I promise this is the last time."

At first, she didn't react. Cecilia merely leaned into her son, her second oldest, and he could tell that as much as it hurt, she wouldn't try to stop him. He didn't know why she wouldn't; he just knew that she wouldn't. Perhaps she felt it unfair to deny him the experiences that had built her into such a strong individual. Perhaps she felt that one last excursion would exorcise the wanderlust from his system. Or perhaps she just felt the determination in him in spite of the pain that he also felt from his actions.

Slowly, she sighed once more, leaning back but not pushing him away. Her expression was one of sad resignation, and when she spoke from her heart, he knew that she truly didn't mean for it to sting as much as it did.

"I hope that your father and I are still around when you come back," Cecilia murmured to her son, not yet ready to look at him.

At that, a few tears did prick at the corners of his eyes. This was supposed to be his final morning before going off to war; softness had no place, there. Regret tore at his heart as he tried to scream inside to block it out, not wanting to condemn himself to sitting at home any longer while wondering where life could have taken him. Wiping the droplets away as fast as he could so he could pretend they weren't real, he tried to recover from the inadvertent blow from his mother.

"Don't talk like that mom, come on. You're both healthy and you eat right. Plus, I won't even be gone that long." This time, he didn't have to lie; her ancient nature caused her a measure of paranoia about ageing. "I'll be back before you and dad know it. Alright?"

He nudged her in the shoulder to get a reaction, any kind of reaction from her. Demure in a way that he wasn't used to seeing his strict, controlling night elf mother, Cecilia nodded without looking up at first. There was no fear of her crying as well this time; at least one burden had been lifted off of his shoulders. But he needed a little more approval than that; just a slightly stronger sign that he wasn't hurting his family in a way that was truly too cruel.

Rising at a rate befitting a being as old as her, his mother tilted her head up to meet him face to face. Her hair, originally a deep indigo color the same as his own, had long since turned grey with age. She highlighted it with azure streaks a shade darker than his father's hide, but otherwise had accepted the outward symbol of her ageing as a sign of her wisdom. It was rare for elves to go grey, and given how few of the pre-immortality generation still lived, her appearance garnered her immediate respect from every Kaldorei she met. The one time she'd been entertained by the current high priestess in Darnassus, Cecilia actually had the honor of the leader of her people bowing lower than she did in full view of all the current night elf notables, the single greatest form of respect that could be bestowed upon someone in their society. Eyes even more advanced in age than the entire combined history of humans and dwarves as races looked up at him clearly. During the daylight hours she had to resort to glasses, but under the dark shade of the back porch he knew she could see him just fine. Traveled, learned eyes providing windows to knowledge as vast as the ocean examined the prodigal son all packed and ready to leave the family again, missing however many years she and her husband had left in their dwindling lives.

"Alright," she whispered reluctantly. He knew her well enough to know from the tone of her voice that she wouldn't be alright for a while, but that she wouldn't stop him from doing what he had to do either.

When he hugged again she hugged back. Back during his childhood, her grip had felt so strong, so irresistible, sometimes scaring the children into obeying her instructions around the house. Having grown up, his mother's grip felt more comforting and less authoritarian; whether it was due to his height or her age he didn't know, and he forced himself to believe the latter was impossible. Knowing that they wouldn't see each other again for a good while, he continued to hold on for an amount of time he would have found embarrassing as a rebellious teenager; as a grown man, he found it touching to the point where he almost had second thoughts about leaving.

After standing apart, Cecilia looked slightly better, her eyes downcast once more but the sadness in her features having decreased. She even patted him on the shoulder in a sort of nudge toward the door back into the house where everybody else was sleeping. "I'll walk you to the gate."

Guilt gripped him and he felt as though he was taking advantage of his mother's tolerance for his selfishness. But it was that selfishness that reminded him of why he had to leave in the first place, of the primal need for adventure he had to work out of his system and finally be done with for good.

For once, he managed to walk through the central hallway of the bottom floor without causing the floorboards to creak at all the worst possible times. His travel bags didn't knock against the door frames and the sprite darters didn't decide to wake up and follow them into the house. By the time they reached the front porch, Navarion could already feel time speeding up as his last moments at home before what he hoped to be his last excursion slipped away. He wished that the balance would cause their front yard to stretch out and elongate just to prolong his last walk across it for a very long time. The front gate of the Hearthglen family estate met him far too soon and he had to literally force his feet over the property line when his mother opened it for him.

Cecilia leaned against the outer entryway in the front of the wall, tucking one of her hands into the pocket of her bathrobe. The sun bothered her eyes and she squinted at him, probably only being able to make out his rough figure but not any details. Cupping her free hand over her eyes to create some shade, she almost gave him an accepting half smile as he looked back into the yard.

"We are proud of you no matter what you do. No matter what happens, you can come back any time. We want you to come back." Her words bore a sense of longing but she wasn't pressuring him the way he knew she could had she wanted to.

"I will come back mom, and sooner than I did last time," he reassured them both. A light breeze rustled his mane, almost pushing him down the road and in the direction of the street leading out of town. Tossing any embarrassment over closeness to his family aside, he mumbled the words before he had time to reconsider. "I love you, mom."

Although night elf culture preferred affection not to be shown so openly even between parents and children, she smiled warmly despite her obvious lingering pain. "I love you too, son," she replied, just standing and waiting for him to leave.

This had been his choice, he reminded himself. He would have to be the one to break things off. Holding back a sigh, he nodded to her and forced himself down the road, swallowing bile as he repressed the thought of what would happen if one of his parents really did pass away from natural causes before he came back. Adrenaline and testosterone, the two most hated chemicals in his body, actually fueled him as he forced himself to jog quickly all the way to the stables lest he have a change of heart. To stay behind and risk the urge to wander the world striking him again and again at later dates was unthinkable.

Once he could reach the plains beyond the limits of Steamwheedle Cartel territory he'd be sure there was no turning back. Until then, he could only speed up as he made his way to the edge of town, trying the whole way to blot out thoughts of what he was leaving behind and lamenting at his desire to explore and conquer threats that weren't even his own until some sort of internal desire could be sated and finally laid to rest.


	9. Front Row Seat

It didn't take long for word of the silithid expansion to spread. The shock of just how quickly and easily the news seemed to reach every workshop, grocery store and tea house in town actually surpassed the shock of how quickly the town was grown and how easily night elves from other parts of the region moved right in.

Even though New Nendis was still largely under construction - or growth, to be exact - it was an enormous place regardless. By the beginning of the fifth month of Navarion's tour of duty, the population had already reached that of Astranaar, another one of the few true cities that had existed during the night elves' ten thousand years of servitude to nature. The population surge was no small feat due to their relatively low birth rate and their dislike of change, transition and relocation. Granted, the fact that Old Nendis had been an extant city for roughly fourteen thousand years up until the aftermath of the Third War helped; a large proportion of those who had chosen to return nearly half a century after its destruction were either former inhabitants like Captain Soraya or the children of former inhabitants like Astariel (who was too young to remember what the old city was like).

And yet despite all that growth, Navarion found that news of their small squadron's encounter on the coastal plains west of the city had preceded them. Not only that, but the number of reported sightings was growing.

It was cute in a way, to see the way the news spread. For sure many of the people living in New Nendis had absolutely no historical connection to the city; rather, many of them were either undecorated sentinels looking to prove their mettle or skilled workers who found too much competition from craftspeople already established in other cities and possessing a thousand years of experience ahead of them.

But many still were those who had initially been refugees upon the old city's destruction or were the children of refugees. The children were the funniest to watch. The majority of them were young and representative of the night elf baby boom (three kids per family was considered a true feat, especially if the mother went right back onto the battlefield after her children learned to walk) and had experienced little of their people's history; indeed, many of them were born after the Cataclysm like Navarion had been. They told stories that a high proportion of their elders had lived through as if they were legends nobody had witnessed directly, and bore a pride for being descendants of the people of Nendis that was strange considering how many of them had never actually lived there before. Time would tell if they would be willing to resist any sort of increase in silithid activity.

Already, an increase was upon them. Sitting at restaurants and tea houses among friends, talk could easily be heard about the encounters of other squadrons. Attacks on trading caravans had largely been cleaned up due to the increased presence of sentinel teams patrolling the highways; trade as the lifeblood of any modern city and merchants were often treated better than citizens. Nobody complained due to the fact that the merchants brought much needed revenue and goods to the community, and the extensive highway patrols were largely appreciated. Not many of the people had been prepare for the establishment of the mounds, however.

Once upon a time, the night elves fought a long, hard war against the insectoid races of Silithus far to the south of the continent. They knew well the dangers posed by the bug people in numbers and under supervision, and sealed them away at the conclusion of the War of the Shifting Sands. A second war involving the forces of the Alliance, Horde and Forsaken led to the decimation of the civilization of the qiraji, the intelligent leaders of the bug people (except the nerubians who had strangely rejoined the Forsaken, such were the strange bedfellows created by the politics of Azeroth). To hear of silithids popping up again wasn't entirely surprising, but was odd. News of them actually building mounds caused alarm, however; once they started breeding, they were liable to swarm and dig their heels in.

Try as they might, the military officials at New Nendis couldn't stamp out public talk of the phenomenon gradually transforming into a crisis despite the strict controls of freedom of speech the Sentinels employed. The situation had even developed to the point where irregular and even regular soldiers discussed the situation at work. And on one particular off duty day, when Navarion found himself going for a stroll through the midnight market with Astariel, he found himself drawn in despite his better judgement. They hadn't seen each other in a month as often happened, and he and Zhenya had begun fighting slightly less, thus when she noticed they both had the same day off that month and invited him to take a look at the random, unassorted goods that merchants often unfurled at night time, he gladly accepted without any discomfort.

A number of stalls had been set up in a fenced off area of narrow paved roads specifically designed for an open air market. Of course, all parts of the city were mostly covered by a canopy above from the tree buildings, but there were technically no walls and the bazaar had as much of an open air feel as such a place could. Stalls and small tents where Kaldorei and outlanders alike hawked all sorts of good abounded, crowding the non-paved patches of grass as potential customers crowded the paved roads. Incense, perfume, spices and various unidentified aromas wafted across the area while foreign musical instruments mixed with several dozen conversations. While far, far quieter and more subdued than the markets of any other race on Azeroth, the midnight market of New Nendis proved a veritable scene of chaos by the standards of the locals.

And in the middle of it all, Astariel chatted anyway, sharing her thoughts on the potential threat while looking at a wooden rack of ready made shoes. Fortunately for Navarion, there was a rack of men's shoes as well and he wasn't left entirely out in the cold.

"The bug people really don't know how foolish they are to threaten a place like Nendis!" Astariel preached to the choir while feeling a felt pair of slippers. "We've worked too hard to regrow our city; the people here will fight down to the very last woman, even civilians."

"I'll bet," Navarion mumbled absentmindedly while eyeing a pair of leather sandals that just might be large enougn to fit his feet. Although his limbs had been inherited from his mother's side of the family, most elven style shoes simply weren't his size. "They'd be walking in to a hornets' nest if they tried to invade."

Unlike Zhenya, Astariel laughed at the lame jokes he made when he wasn't paying attention to what somebody was saying to him, and it had an infectious, light sound. She probably felt his jokes were corny, he himself didn't really out much thought into them and they were both talking about nothing...and he simply adored the whole interaction. For the longest time, he couldn't remember feeling so relaxed.

"Do you think I can stomp mud holes in silithid bee-hinds with these?" Astariel asked cheekily while showing off a pair of red slippers encrusted with what appeared to be crushed quartz crystals. Like much of the footwear on sale, the pair she held loosely on two fingers were mere slippers and made of felt.

"Just make sure you shoot them down first. Then you could dance all over them while wearing whatever you'd like." His comment didn't quite have the sly humor to it he'd wished, but strangely, he didn't find the desire to take jabs and make sarcastic comments like he usually would. Navarion almost didn't feel like himself.

Also, he had found a pair of his own to examine, partially distracting him. Just like she'd done, he'd found a pair of felt slippers that caught his eye; he normally detested shopping for anything, especially footwear, but his general sense of comfort that night helped him relax into it. They were dark purple, not quite the same color as his indigo hair but close enough. And surprisingly, they looked like they might even fit his feet.

"You have little elf feet!" Astariel giggled at him.

Slowly, he lowered the shoes to find her standing right in front of him, her posture a little defensive but still cheeky nonetheless. She held the slippers she was examining in one hand and folded her arms in front of her, looking up at him to see if he'd react. They were tucked in between the shoe rack and the next tent over of another hawker, out of the way of foot traffic on the road; nobody had heard the comment and he didn't feel angry, but he felt a combination of competitiveness and...something he wasn't familiar with. Something he wasn't used to. Was...was it...self consciousness? Navarion Hearthglen felt self conscious? He wondered what was wrong with himself.

"What do you mean by little?" he asked, a weird mixture of offended curiosity in his voice that even he heard.

"Well, your father is a troll, right? Like Ragnar?" Her posture remained defensive but she could obviously tell that he wasn't angry. If anything, she seemed a little contrite.

"Yeeees...what does my dad have to do with your libelous slander against my feet?" he asked again, surprised at his own cheekiness.

"Well, his hands and feet must be so much huger than yours!" she burst out, simply tickled at the reaction she'd elicited from him. "From far away you kind of have a troll face, and troll hair, but you have elf ears, hands and feet! But your feet are so long because you're taller than everybody else...how do you even buy shoes? Do you just get them all custom made?"

Glancing down at his off-duty leather shoes, Navarion realized that he was a thirty four year old man and had literally never thought about his own feet before. They were pretty narrow...well, compared to his dad. His dad was bigger than him, but so was his middle brother Zengu, yet Zengu had feet that weren't much larger than his own. Their father Khujand didn't even need snow shoes in the snow because his own two-toed feet were so wide. His hands were massive, too; Zengu probably weighed more than their dad and was well-built, but couldn't match Khujand's grip strength. And their dad was only of slightly above average size for a jungle troll.

Astariel's never ending onslaught interrupted his thoughts.

"Are you trying to mentally compare your hands to your dad's?" she predicted with a startling accuracy.

"Wha...what?"

"You were, weren't you? I figured you out!" she cheered quietly, literally throwing her hands up in the air as if she'd actually won something. "It's okay, your hands and feet are normal here. At least they aren't puffy like mine."

He winced in perplexion. "Puffy? Your feet look perfectly fine, what's wrong with you?"

"Seriously? Are you making fun of me?" she laughed, not a hint of self consciousness about her as she did. "My feet are like pufferfish puffy, look." She flipped one of her casual shoes off and wiggled her toes in the grass, not realizing she sent another weird testosterone spike running through Navarion's system, pushing him to block out a whisper in the back of his mind he didn't want to listen to. "See? They're totally puffy."

Her feet were amazing. Thick but not too thick. Meaty was the wrong word; so was fleshy. Full? But nobody used the term full-footed. Unlike the lithe night elves and half night elves like all the women in his family, Astariel didn't have veiny, vascular feet, nor were her tendons visible. She...by Elune and the Loa both...did she have cankles? A night elf with cankles? The voice told him inappropriate thoughts and he fought to continue to behave respectfully.

"Look, show me yours - I bet they aren't puffy at all!" She tapped his shoe with her bare foot as she said it, completely innocent and not intending to tease him but tempting him nonetheless. All she'd done was show him a foot, and he didn't even have a foot fetish, but Astariel remained so covered all the time that seeing any part of her skin sent his mind racing. "They're so much longer than mine, too!"

"You want to...see my feet?"

"Yes silly, I need to confirm. I bet yours are like, normal. Like they don't have depth to them the way troll feet do; they're probably shallow just like they're narrow. You're so elven no matter what you do." Her words didn't make sense and she wasn't being the least bit pushy. In fact, her nonchalance was part of what made him feel a bit self conscious, which didn't make sense even to him.

"Uh...alright," he mumbled while holding the heel of his shoe down with his opposite toe to slip his foot out. His sock snagged on the high rim and he ended up pulling his foot out bare like hers was. "Like this?"

The grass felt so soft under his feet. His shoes were comfortable for sure, but it had been a long time since he'd felt what walking barefoot was like. Having grown up in an international city, the norm was wearing footwear all the time and since he'd been mostly on the move as a mercenary for the past few years, wearing thick leather or fur boots had been mandatory. But now that he could feel what soft, natural, health grass felt like on the soles of his feet again, he couldn't help but wiggle his toes, too.

When she put her foot next to his, right up next to his, he felt the darkness that he thought he'd left behind return to him. Her skin felt so soft even when it was only the blade of her foot against his, her demeanor so relaxed, it was intoxicating. And it was wrong. Even if Zhenya didn't consider them a couple per se, he was committed to her and she seemed to be begrudgingly committed to him. Astariel was a good woman and he should be treating her as such, giving both her and Zhenya the proper amount of two different types of respect.

God...all she did was put her foot against his. He was too old for his mind to race in such a way.

"Your feet are so long!" she laughed in sincere amusement. Indeed, the difference in length was formidable despite the fact that Astariel wasn't excessively short.

"My feet aren't that longer in terms of proportion to yours," he fired back, accepting the friendly challenge. "You just have tiny toes."

"What?!"

"Your toes are like chicken nuggets. Like, if you go to a goblin restaurant and order chicken nuggets, they're basically Astra toes." He grinned, feeling a little more comfortable once they began talking again. "In fact, that's what I'm calling chicken nuggets from now on. Astra toes."

Mercifully, she pulled her foot off of his and turned to face him, creating some necessary space. "You're saying I have nugget toes!" she cried in mock indignance.

"You're the one who challenged me to a foot measurement competition," he joked while straining to put his sock back on. The space between the rack and the next tent was cramped, and he had to back out and balance on another rack so they'd both have enough space to re-sock their feet. "Which I think I technically won, by the way. My feet are way longer than yours."

"Harrumph!" she tried to grunt defiantly, though she ended up just laughing again.

Just as Navarion was about to laugh along with her, his eye caught gold colored armor along with gold colored eyes shining through a gold colored helmet. One cracked half of a horn alerted him to the approaching company, and he stood up straight to get a better look at her.

Carefully making her way through the crowd and waiting for laborers and runners to carry their loads, Zhenya clopped down the road toward them. Despite the fact that he wasn't doing anything wrong, Navarion felt a measure of the self consciousness return to him, once again beyond his own explanation. Tammie and Thresha were both his friends, and to have Zhenya see him and them together never caused him any unease. But try as he might, he couldn't shake the slight negativity nagging at him as Astariel turned to find who he was looking at only to see Zhenya just ten yards away from them across the crowd of shoppers. Nobody took notice, as the city was well policed and armed, on duty guards tended to patrol both the isolated areas as well as the crowded ones, ever watchful for potential incidents of pick pocketing or other illicit activities.

As always, her helmet left only her one and a half horns and the glow of her two golden eyes visible, and her mood was impossible to gauge. Crossing the street and moving around the last few patrons who were absentmindedly fiddling through their coin purses, Zhenya stopped in front of the two of them, her hands akimbo at her sides as they often tended to be. She didn't even bother looking at Astariel and missed the night elf's open mouthed attempt at a greeting.

"Sergeant Fyndir told me to tell you that he needs you to work an extra shift tomorrow," the draenei paladin informed Navarion. Her tone was curt but professional, which was the best he could have hoped for. "He didn't mention the details and told me to tell you that he'll tell you when you go so see him."

Astariel folded her arms but didn't go so far as to pout. Her discontent registered at least with Navarion; if Zhenya sensed it, she didn't react, and continued to stare up at the half elf she'd been sent to deliver news to.

Relieved that his kind of sort of romantic partner hadn't reacted negatively to his presence with a female friend, Navarion sighed audibly before responding. "He didn't mention anything in terms of what time slot I could expect? Or the details of what I'll be doing extra?"

"I just told you he didn't," she replied, not huffing but remaining curt.

"Alright. I'll try to get to him soon - thanks for the info."

Nodding and turning, Zhenya neither told him he was welcome for the information nor did she so much as acknowledge Astariel's presence. In and out of the crowd she clopped away, continuing on what had been her regular duty for the past few nights. So enthralled were all the patrons in the offerings of the merchant stalls at the midnight market that nobody paid Zhenya or any other guards any mind, oblivious to the fact that they were being observed.

No sooner had the draenei dropped out of earshot than had the night elf begun to complain.

"How rude!" Astariel did actually huff. "She didn't even bother saying hello. Can you believe that?" she asked non-rhetorically, looking up at him for an answer. Or agreement.

"Uh...maybe she's a bit tired from whatever duty they have her on," he mumbled, trying his best to make an excuse for the woman he slept with in front of a woman who - when reducing the relationship down to an equation - he did not sleep with. "She's really quite pleasant when she's well rested."

"She's always so blunt!" Astariel protested, not shouting but speaking in a very serious, self assured tone. "And she never thinks about the feelings of other people!"

For a second, Navarion almost let it slide and had resigned himself to just fall into the pattern of half hearted defenses while tuning out much of what was said when two people close to him bickered with each other. Only a second. But then, a connection was made within his head. A subtlety he may not have noticed had they not been standing off on their own, away from the hustle and bustle of the market street.

"So wait...since when have you and Zhenya known each other?" he asked sincerely, thinking perhaps that they'd had run ins before when he wasn't around.

Visibly caught off guard, Astariel opened her mouth to say something but then closed it. She looked at a group of people inspecting discount towels at a stall across from them, but he knew she wasn't paying attention to any of that. The only image he had in his mind was of the sympathetic look Astariel had given him almost half a year ago when Zhenya had publicly insulted him by checking out other men in a very obvious way. He hadn't known her at the time and the look increased his embarrassment at the time, but it was the only time he'd known them to have seen each other.

"What? Know her...no, I mean, I've never actually met her," Astariel corrected him. The spirits told him that she was telling the truth and now she appeared to be the one ill at ease. "I've seen her around." She regained her composure after the last comment and overcompensated by a tad. "And she's rude to people! Isn't she rude? She didn't even introduce herself to me!"

For some reason, the fact that he had been put between a rock and a hard place made Navarion smile. He cared about Zhenya despite their incessant arguments and on some level, he felt she cared for him as well. But her denial of any sort of intimacy with him could sting if he tried to mention anything openly; she'd tersely done so at a location they'd served at in Felwood over a year ago and he'd learned his lesson. So plainly telling Astariel to please not talk about Zhenya that way because the paladin was his more-than-a-friend with benefits was out of the question. Likewise, he couldn't agree; he had no doubt in his mind that, were positions reversed, Zhenya might poke fun at him behind his back. And ten years ago, he might have done the same. But he was a different man now, or at least he was trying to be. And as much as he liked Astariel, there was a part of him deep down inside that didn't like her talking about Zhenya negatively.

In the end, he had to respond and the only thing he could think of was changing the subject.

"Not as rude as this." Reaching forward toward her, Navarion garnered a yelp from Astariel as he reached into her satchel, pulled out some blueberries he'd seen her carrying and ate them before she had a chance to protest. It had all happened so fast that she didn't have time to protest until he finished eating the berries.

"Hey! I had to hunt and gather for a long time to find those!"

"How long?" he asked while chewing on a mouthful of berry.

She glared at him defiantly, but the smirk she just couldn't fight off warned him of the impending humor. "Almost five minutes!"

"Well, follow me," he chuckled while leading her back onto the little street among the rest of the midnight shoppers. "I spotted some imported mangoes earlier that you might like. And maybe I'll even share some once I buy out their entire stock."

Smiling to herself as if she'd won another competition, Astariel kept Navarion's pace as they went back to the fruit sellers' stalls. There was one sticky situation avoided, if not entirely diffused.

"Come on inside," Fyndir called in his familiar, oddly deep voice from within his office hovel.

The sun had almost risen by the time Navarion had returned to the military quarter to see the sergeant in charge of the men at the barracks. After eating far too many mangoes, he and Astariel had bumped in to his parents' old friend Zorena, who apparently was herself friends with Pontus, the restoration Druid from the silithid mound skirmish, and a few other healers. More fruit was ingested and more laughs were had until the wee hours of the morning approached; for those on nocturnal work schedules such as their group, the approach of dawn signaled that it was time to sleep. Then when they had returned to the military quarter of the city, they'd milled about in groups of other irregulars until everyone began tending to the normal pre-sleep errands.

Considering how late he had come, Fyndir was awfully understanding. As always, the mess of papers on his desk had him and another random officer from the female side preoccupied.

Navarion stood at attention for a minute, not knowing whether he was to wait until spoken to or just speak freely.

"I have been told that I'll be working an extra shift tomorrow, sir," the half elf said to the full elf.

"Just two and a half hours extra. Just a fluke since somebody twisted their ankle and the healers advised her to let it heal naturally," Fyndir replied while scribbling in the back of an already signed document.

The two officers continued to scribble and the mercenary continued to just stand there, unsure of what to do. He was tired, so we're they most likely, and just standing there began to feel like a frustrating waste of time. Until he was officially dismissed, however, he had little recourse.

Fortunately, they didn't keep him waiting. "Oh, by the way, there's a full scale campaign against the silithids being planned. The public announcement will be tomorrow, but we wanted a few people to float the information unofficially among the barracks first. Strategic purposes."

Inside his heart, a less wise and more foolhardy part of Navarion jumped for joy. This sounded like the sort of conflict he'd been longing for, the sort of fight he needed to work the wanderlust out of his system. Dangerous, risky and possibly hasty, it was bound to put a stop to the expansion of the bug people while also leading to the loss of a few good soldiers. But it would mean wading into the thick of battle, where a part of him felt he belonged and what another part of him just wanted to let go of.

"Sergeant Fyndir," Navarion started, a nervous excitement overtaking him. "Do we know how many hives or when-"

"Everything will be answered at the first public announcement here in the quarter tomorrow," Fyndir answered brusquely.

In spite of the news and the sense of honor at having been asked to help spread news, Navarion couldn't deny the brief spark of irritation. The sergeant had called for him all the way from across town...just to ask him to spread a rumor? What was wrong with letting just a little more information slip?

Remembering his place, Navarion let it slide. "Thank you, sir. I'll make sure to surreptitiously spread the word."

A nod and a grunt later, and Fyndir and his colleague had returned to the messy stack of papers. Taking that as an acknowledgement of a meeting adjourned, Navarion turned to leave.

"Oh, by the way," Fyndir remarked at the last minute as if it were a minor detail. "Your unit will be toward the front of the eventual strike force. Seems like you'll get a front row seat to the action."


	10. Underestimation

After placing the thousandth arrow in a quiver that evening, all Navarion could think of was burning them all to the ground. It was only through some miracle that the few others working alongside him at the supply warehouse were just as bored and thus just as receptive to light conversation. There wasn't much else to do, considering the fact that many of them had begun working extra shifts and the preparations for war - always out of the prying eyes of civilians - were surprisingly unexciting. For every soldier directly on the battlefield, there were two more behind the scenes hauling supplies, maintaining the barracks and the food distribution area and simply handling the logistics of it all.

And there the four of them sat. For whatever reason, they had been broken off from their normal units, and Navarion found himself along with Calil and two other males in the supply room arranging the gear of the archers so they wouldn't have to worry about it when it came time to march.

"I don't see why we have to keep the preparation phase secret from all the civvies," Calil mumbled while a quiver strap on one of the many pegs sticking out of the wall. "They already made the announcement for an eradication campaign last week."

"Extermination," the first of the other two young men, an apprentice Druid a little shorter than the others, corrected him.

"Whatever it's going to be called, I don't see why we have to hide away and arrange all the equipment and supplies during the odd daylight hours."

Choir being preached to, nobody responded other than grunts and nods of approval. One could only arrange quivers and stockpiles of arrows so many times before the need either for silence or meaningful conversation seeped in. If nobody had any ideas that were worth telling, most just nodded silently and carried on.

Light conversation occasionally broke out every so often. During the hours they spent arranging full quivers for what must have been the entirety of the Sentinel Army and Air Force, there were instances every so often where somebody would need another pile of arrows scooted their way, somebody would accidentally break one and need a place to hide the evidence, or someone would need to be covered while taking a break. The two men Navarion hadn't met before were quiet enough. One of them, a medium infantryman, appeared to be older and perhaps had been one of the barrow den guards or a clerk during immortality. The apprentice Druid couldn't have been any older than Calil. Both of them seemed content to just carry out the task, however.

Calil, on the other hand, was rather chatty by the standards of elves.

"Did you guys hear Thresha playing at the market last weekend?" Calil asked the others. He sounded like he was just trying to pass the time, though his eye gleamed a little bit when discussing his secret crush.

The older man grunted again while continuing to pack quivers, his back resting against the wall as they all sat cross legged on the floor of the wooden warehouse. The Druid, similarly young and perhaps on the chatty side, jumped in before Navarion had to in order to give the young soldier an opportunity to possibly work out whatever simple feelings he was probably over complicating.

"Oh, a few of the ladies gave that impromptu musical performance, right?" the apprentice asked while struggling with a quiver strap that just wouldn't become unwrapped from his arm.

"Yes, they didn't plan it or anything!" Calil responded jovially, his silver eyes lighting up like a child's. "Apparently one of the merchants had these tambourines from Feralas she was trying to show off, so she let one of the huntresses play on it to test it out. Captain Soraya kind of glared at them at first but they were off duty, and even she started to play!"

At that, both Navarion and the older infantryman looked up. "Captain Soraya...seriously?" the half elf asked incredulously.

"No he's right, I remember seeing one of the captains playing a flute next to the others," the apprentice chimed in. "This real serous, stern looking woman. It was quite a sight."

"Thresha had this trumpet...I've never seen anything like it up close. Just in pictures from a textbook, something about the orchestra in Darnassus," Calil said wistfully, perhaps not realizing how much he let his feelings show. "She played so well that I actually bought it for her afterward, but she doesn't know it was me."

Not noticing the slip, the apprentice Druid continued to marvel at the sight of one of the captains behaving so casually. "I think I remember Captain Soraya from the announcement for the extermination campaign. She came off as so...uptight." The young man looked around the room as if they were being monitored, obviously a little inexperienced and possibly conservative in terms of respecting authority. "Everybody got such a kick out of it when she started playing, like it was a big deal."

"I didn't see it, so I almost don't believe it," Navarion chuckled in response, loosening up and no longer minding the task so much. These seemed like a good bunch of guys.

The older soldier continued his slow movements. Clinking against the arrow shafts from time to time, a silver engagement ring matching the color of his eyes shone brightly. Looking up at Calil, the more weathered soldier asked him a sincere, unassuming question.

"So are the two of you getting married, or did you just recently get together?"

The apprentice took no notice at first, but Navarion observed carefully and saw how poor Calil tensed up and started to blush. Although he was caught off guard, he only had himself to blame - he was the one who had brought up the topic.

"Oh...what? No, no, that's not it at all," Calil sputtered quickly, trying and failing to brush the subject off. "We're just friends is all."

"Those imported trumpets aren't cheap," the older infantryman remarked casually. "Those usually aren't bought for people who are just friends." He didn't seem to mean anything by the comment and was overall a pleasant man to work with, but his words left Calil feeling very exposed.

Rather than jumping in to save him from embarrassment, Navarion took the opportunity to push the young man just a little harder. "You should ask Thresha to have dinner with you at one of those restaurants where you can win desserts by playing in those trivia games. You know, like the new one they just grew not far from one of the inner city streams. Then you two could go for a walk along the bank of the stream afterward. It would be a great way to spend time together."

The older soldier hummed his approval. "This guy gets it," he chuckled.

Instead of being relieved, Calil looked mortified. "But...no, I can't do that!" he protested, though he clearly found himself at a loss for words.

"Why not?" the apprentice asked innocently. The young Druid was fighting a losing battle with a stack of arrows that had become hooked together at the heads, and he didn't even bother looking up to notice Calil's panicked reaction.

"Because if I ask her, she might say no!"

At that, Navarion found himself unable to spare Calil's feelings much longer. At least they were away from people he knew well, especially anybody who could potentially tell Thresha about the conversation. The guy needed a bit of a bigger push. "Then stop talking to her."

"Talking to her about what?" Calil asked.

"Cut off from her completely. Stop talking to her, don't hang out with her and make up excuses if she ever wants to be around you again."

Even the Druid looked up, the two younger men clearly confused. The older infantryman continued organizing quivers but remained silent; Navarion could sense that the ms probably knew the point he was trying to make but didn't feel it his place to speak up due to not knowing any of them very well. Calil looked mortified once more, terrified of the prospect of telling Thresha how he felt and terrified of the prospect of losing her.

"Wh...why?"

"Look, it's simple." Navarion laid the quiver he had been filling to one side and scooted forward once he had Calil's attention. "She's great, you're smitten. I get it. But you complicate the matter and make it into a bigger deal than it really is. It isn't supposed to be that complicated. If you want to be more than friends and she doesn't, then either you have to get over it or cut off. You seem to like her so much to the point where you're experiencing heartache every time you see her, which neither you nor she can control but that's how it is. So cut off from her. If you can't stop obsessing over her but you won't make a move, then remove yourself from her life and her from yours."

"But if I cut off from her, she might be offended!" Calil protested as strongly as he could despite his soft spoken nature. He became flustered by the harsh suggestion and was clearly trying to find reasons not to follow it rather than actually considering it. "If I stop talking to her, I might lose her as a friend!"

"Then lose her as a friend; there's a world full of people to be friends with," Navarion replied nonchalantly, trying to show Calil that he was taking the matter too seriously. "If you really get to the point where you're buying her expensive gifts but not telling her because you're too shy, you're basically just setting yourself up for total heartbreak whenever she does find someone else." Calil looked hurt by the words, but Navarion felt it necessary for him to hear and finished. "Either take the risk and ask her out, and understand you'd be asking her to only one date and not to actually be with you, or stop torturing yourself by hanging around somebody who you only feel pain and longing to be around, however unintentional that is on both of your parts. Because as much as she doesn't owe you her affection, you also don't owe her your friendship."

Crestfallen, Calil slumped against the wall. Even his arrow bundling stopped, and the group of four men in a wooden room fell silent for a few long seconds. Perhaps sympathizing with Calil's plight, the Druid tried to cheer him up.

"You know, if you like her so much I'll bet she might quite like the idea of going out with you, too. A lot of times the right person is waiting around and you just didn't realize it before. Maybe that's her situation." Well intentioned as the Druid's words were, he didn't know the background of the situation or how Calil felt as if Thresha viewed him as some sort of eunuch, and the young soldier only nodded outwardly while his heart sank inwardly.

Sensing that, Navarion tried his best to lessen the sting without sugar coating anything for him. "Look, women aren't all that different from men and their minds aren't as complicated as you might think. When it comes to affairs of the heart, just treat people with respect, be honest and follow the three rules."

The older man laughed with his mouth closed but didn't say anything when Calil looked his way. Not getting any answers there, he turned back to Navarion. "I've never heard of that."

"Well, they're a modern invention, really. A few of us first began passing them around during the Twilight Wars against all those cultists a few years back."

"Well, what are they?" the apprentice asked, just as concerned as Calil.

"Alright, and remember these because they're rules for life," Navarion joked, marveling at the irony of how seriously Calil looked when he leaned forward to hear, forgetting the advice to not take matters so seriously. "First of all, value yourself and value others. That's one rule, not two, because respect is a two way street."

"Okay, that one's obvious," Calil replied a bit flippantly. "The others?"

"Slow down, we're getting there. So the second one is to not ever fall into the friend zone unless you're comfortable being there. If you want something more and the other person doesn't, then wish them all the best and find other people to hang out with. Otherwise, you're just asking for heartbreak."

Calil looked even more downcast at the second piece of advice and the young Druid looked uncomfortable as well. As if wanting to support the other more experienced person, the older soldier bowed his head in agreement while continuing to work.

Opening his mouth and then closing it, the Druid appeared to disagree but didn't quite know how to word it. Not wanting to give either of them a chance to argue with advice that he knew to be true from experience, Navarion jumped into the third rule without waiting for them to acknowledge the second.

"Last but not least, never hook up with virgins."

After a few seconds, Calil understood what Navarion meant and his face turned bright purple. Like most elves, he had clearly matured later than the younger lived races and may very well have never been on a date or felt the caress of a woman before. They tended to marry a bit later, were devoted and monogamous afterward and never spoke of intimacy beforehand. At least, not the men, who tended to be a bit conservative; after overhearing a nearly traumatizing conversation between his sisters and godmother as a teen, Navarion knew Kaldorei women were a bit different, though nowhere near as raunchy in their conversations as human or troll women.

Much the same case did the apprentice Druid find himself in, though unlike Calil he didn't even appear to understand what exactly Navarion meant.

"Hook up?" the apprentice asked curiously. "Hook like...is that a kind of dance?"

"Dirty dancing, if you want to call it that," Navarion stated, his tone controlled to keep the humor subtle.

Calil only blushed even more and the older man started to laugh out loud. "Hook up means to have sex," the quiet infantryman explained.

Both of the younger men blushing now, the air in the room felt very still. Calil only looked down as if he wished he could just shadowmeld in plain view, quite clearly embarrassed beyond belief. The apprentice, perhaps just as sheepish but speaking openly only because he didn't know the others, tried to deflect the subject.

"We, um...this isn't a usual topic for conversation," the young man mumbled. "It's best saved for the bedchambers."

"Fair enough, but just keep those rules in mind," Navarion laughed. He wasn't mocking them - he was mature enough to no longer equate having sex with being a man - but he did feel a sort of appreciative, almost nostalgic humor at the restrained nature of younger pureblooded Kaldorei. "Because one thing's for sure: a woman who's never been touched by a man before doesn't need you irreversibly changing the course of her life. Not unless you're really ready for something more, in which case it wouldn't simply be hooking up. So don't pursue them, or I guess in your cases, take things slow and don't rush into anything," he explained to the two embarrassed virgins sitting across from him.

For a while longer, the conversation died down and the four of them had lined the pegs covering the twelve foot high walls of the small warehouse from top to bottom in fully stocked quivers. While more experienced archers preferred to keep their own quiver and arrows, the younger women often had only a simple bow to their name and would simply arrive at the warehouse when it was time to march, grabbing whatever quiver was nearby and available to them. Though for the true greenhorns, they often would need to borrow a bow from the next storeroom over, too.

The four of them were only halfway finished counting all the quivers and arrows - Captain Soraya would actually want a written count - when a drop in air pressure signaled that spirits were trying to speak to Navarion. Ears pricked up, the shadow hunter tried to listen - his voodoo was still undeveloped enough such that he could only feel physical changes from their presence if they bore serious news.

"Something is wrong," he whispered to the older soldier, though loudly enough for the others to hear.

"What? What's happening?" the apprentice asked, though the two older men ignored him and honed their long ears to listen for any disturbances.

Far, far off in the distance, the ding of metal rang out. Normally it wouldn't be a cause for alarm; sentinels were always sparring at various times of night and day, and the occasional dropped crate or slumping sabre at the quarter for shipping and cargo unloading tended to cause quite a bit of noise as well. But the half troll's voodoo whispered to him without being asked, and that wasn't good. The metal sound wasn't normal.

The buzz that came afterwards, faint but audible enougn for all their sensitive ears to hear, confirmed that an attack was afoot.

"Silithids!" Calil hissed, scrambling for his glaive near the door.

The older soldier, also medium infantry like Calil, only wore light mail and carried a glaive, requiring no shield. Grabbing Calil by the shoulder, he stopped his medium armored counterpart and motioned toward the two others. "Let them go first," he advised strongly.

Navarion knew the drill. He also wore only medium armor but was much larger than pureblooded elves and had inherited a bit of his father's regeneration; much like his old man, he could function as a meat shield if necessary. The apprentice Druid was shorter than the others but was, technically, a guardian Druid and could shift into the form of a bear. A sort of smallish bear, but a bear nonetheless, and thus also a meat shield if not quite a tank. The young man had already shifted before they were all out the door, dusk having already fallen upon the city. The supply quarter of the city was right next to the waystation where mounts were tended to and cargo was unloaded and stored, and thankfully they weren't far from the gate where the commotion came from; at least whatever was attacking the city hadn't come from multiple sides.

The four of them turned onto the main road leading through more trees that formed storage units as well as regular trees, running toward the gate in the western wall. Clangs of metal were joined by more buzzing, battle cries and the screams of civilians and they found themselves joined by a contingent of hooded archers running toward the exit as well. Through the gate, all they could see was a crowd of merchants and locals running into the city, too horrified to stop and explain what was going on. Once again, Navarion was shocked at how sedentary the night elves had become; civilians had been unknown to his mother's people for millennia, and the sight of Kaldorei in plainclothes fleeing for their lives rather than turning and fighting was a far cry from the stories of a warrior society living in the woods that he had grown up with.

The buzzing grew louder once they reached the veritable tunnel leading through the naturally raised stone walls, the panting and cries of the civilians echoing against the more muffled shouts, screeches and chitters from around the corner. A few brave Tauren attendants tried to calm the kodos in the pen visible from inside the tunnel, and at least one dead bug lied near the gate of the pen, stomped to death by one of the caravan animals.

When the amalgamation of infantry, archers, one bear Druid, a feral Druidess that had showed up out of nowhere and the single shadow hunter exited from the gate and turned to the left, they all saw what had happened.

Up and down the rampart next to the city wall, a group of regular enlisted sentinels - all of them the sort of inexperienced, low ranking youngbloods that tended to be stuck with wall patrol - clashed against the more numerous and unfortunately better organized silithids. These weren't the bloated, slow moving tunnelers that had been stinking up the beach or digging the mounds; these were wasps, the offensive attack force of the silithids. Aggressive, fast and comparable in size to a worgen, they were completely airborne but were large enough to pose a threat without the need to swarm. Throwing caution to the wind they cut through, the wasps tended to dive right in rather than playing the waiting game by pecking and then fleeing, and the relatively inexperienced group of twenty or so sentinels appeared overwhelmed by the kamikaze attacks of the foolhardy insects. At least half the young sentinels were injured - the wasps, thankfully, fought by slashing rather than poisoning - and they proved unable to fall into formation properly against the group of forty or so silithids attacking from above rather than head on.

Captain Soraya had already rushed forward, taking the lead before even the heavily armored infantrywoman behind her could raise her tower shield. Not saying a word, the captain tossed her glaive, cutting one wasp in half and slicing off the wings of another before the tri-bladed weapon bounced back to her flawlessly. Arrows flew from the archers behind the group of reinforcements, and the wasps turned upon the more dangerous enemies as the inexperienced sentinels that had been guarding the wall huddled together in a defensive formation, visibly relieved to no longer bear most of the aggro of the enraged silithids. The wingless wasp was quickly cut to pieces by the exhausted youngbloods, leaving the new arrivals to deal with a few dozen airborne attackers.

Not even needing to be instructed by Soraya, Navarion began casting down his wards around the archers. A few of them winced at the presence of voodoo in the ranks of the Sentinel Army, but none of them refused the protection provided by the stasis traps, and at least two wasps were slammed into the ground before the surprisingly intelligent insectoids realized that the wards created an impenetrable barrier. Their thick carapaces proved an effective form of armor and many of the arrows only served as an annoyance once they pierced the exoskeletons of the wasps. The glaives of the handful of infantry were much more effective, slicing through wings and downing the wasps ar a rapid pace. The razor sharp appendages of the wasps were deadly weapons but useless for walking, and once on the ground the downed bugs were easily picked off by the battered but suddenly more confident youngbloods. The apprentice Druid and the heavily armored huntress who reminded Navarion of his mother in her battle armor both roared and shouted to distract the wasps, though a few proved smarter than the others and ignored the bait. An arcane explosion rang out just as the highborne Mage from the men's barracks fell to the smarter of the wasps who noticed his cloth armor.

Springing forward, Navarion tried to cast his heal spell in the mage's general direction, but without being able to see how he had been hurt specifically the shadow hunter knew there was little he could do. The mage's staff was knocked from his hand and arcane missiles fired off indiscriminately, temporarily throwing the ranks of the sentinels into disarray. Soraya bellowed formation commands to compensate but the wasps capitalized on the chaos that ensued from the random arcane explosions, and at least one foolhardy young sentinel as well as the apprentice bear Druid wandered a little too far away from the others and were quickly knocked to the ground by at least four clinging wasps each. Navarion as well as one of the more magically inclined archers cast healing spells in their direction as well, though again, without being able to see their wounds up close it was impossible to know how effective their spells actually were.

More sentinels broke formation to pounce on the clinging wasps directly and pull them off of the three downed comrades, leading to more of the wasps to dive bomb the mess of both mammalian and insectoid fighters. The archers stopped shooting, not wanting to hit anybody with friendly fire, and even though the wasps were dying fast their savagery only increased as they noticed they were no longer being pelted with arrows. Soraya hung back, trying in vain to direct both some of the sentinels to intercept the oncoming silithids still in the air and others to drag the swarming wasps off of the infantrywoman, mage and bear Druid before it was too late. Scanning the scene, Navarion realized that the three casualties were too far apart for him to use his big, bad voodoo spell and make all three of them temporarily invulnerable at one time, nor were there enough of the more heavily armored sentinels to protect him while he started the war dance he needed in order to cast it.

Steeling his nerve, he continued to rotate among the three dog piles of people and bugs, casting his heal spell at comrades he couldn't even clearly see in an attempt he knew was largely in vain. The spirit of the highborne Mage slipped from the man's body, definitely screaming to Navarion as the taciturn silver-haired elf spitefully rejected his own death and refused to pass on contentedly. Navarion had no idea if the feral Druidess or any of the archers knew a resurrection spell - those took years of training and were exceedingly difficult to pull off - and the wasps that had been dragged off of him and gutted were replaced by more. Virtually none of the silithids remained airborne at that point; with the archers protected by a stasis trap, the brave but frazzled and exhausted youngblood hanging back a safe distance and the remaining infantry busy doing damage control, the spiteful but smart wasps focused on dropping straight down onto their three downed targets, latching onto the valiant sentinel, Druid and mage's bodies and limbs with their pointy stingers, legs and jaws.

No longer needing to do much direction once all but a few of the silithids had landed, Soraya charged in as well, dropping her glaive, grabbing silithids by the wings and pulling them off of the fallen fighters with her bare hands. Largely immobile once on the ground, the wasps merely thrashed their sharp limbs upward once they were dragged away, though once flipped onto their backs - which was easy to do when they weren't in the air - their strikes lacked power and were easy to predict. The youngbloods took those Soraya and the others dragged off of the screaming sentinel and Druid, venting their anger as they cut the bugs' wings, limbs and stingers off and then left them to die slowly.

Mana nearly burned out from all the barely accurate, blind healing, Navarion tried to focus on what little he could do while trying not to think about the mage he and the sole archer who could also heal hadn't been able to save (the other archers left the safety of the stasis traps once they shot down the last flying wasps and worked at pulling the wasps off of their fallen comrades). Several of the sentinels who had been at work dragging the thrashing wasps away had been hit by stingers and pedipalps in the process, but Navarion focused on the sentinel and Druid he couldn't see, leaving those who were wounded but still standing to wait; they weren't fatally injured for the most part and the younger ones could do with a lesson on how to tough out the pain.

Finally the last of the wasps had been pulled away from their target, and Navarion felt a pang of nausea as it ripped a lump of fur, fat and flesh from the bear Druid as it was yanked away. The feral Druidess who herself had been rather seriously hurt during the fight shifted back to elven form, ignoring all her own cuts and scratches and casting some status spell other than healing on the bear Druid while other elves knelt over him and held on to his limbs. Spirits telling him that the Druid was alive but somehow altered, abnormal after the fight, Navarion didn't interrupt whatever the feral Druidess was doing to him and held back his healing spell.

When a male sentinel collapsed, gasps from the youngbloods and a curse form Soraya rang out and Navarion joined her to see what was wrong.

Turning his body over, the half elf realized it was the older infantryman from the warehouse who had been stocking quivers full of arrows with them. At some point during the melee to save the fallen soldiers, a stray wasp limb had slashed his throat; he couldn't breathe and was losing blood fast, and Soraya had to yell at the younger recruits to back off. The sheer number of soldiers who were even younger than Navarion was staggering, and they lacked the focus and stoicism his mother had always described in her stories. And just like his mother and her hyperirritability, Soraya quickly lost her patience with the younger elves who found themselves at a loss for how to help.

The archer who knew a healing spell squeezed in between Navarion and Soraya, hovering over the male sentinel as well as the female who had been the first to fall to a dive bomb attack. She was much younger than the male but similarly armored. Though she wasn't bleeding as fast as he was due to the severed arteries in his neck, her wounds were much more extensive and painful looking since she'd been pinned under half a dozen silithids for at least two minutes - a very, very, very long period of time when one is being mauled by multiple assailants and unable to fight back. Every piece of flesh left exposed by her medium armor was torn, and one of the wasps had managed to wedge its stinger into the gap of armor between her breastplate and steel belt. Her breathing was shallow and weak; the male's gasps were harsh and desperate.

"I'm out of mana," the archer said to Navarion as her heal spell fizzled out; she remained strong like all night elves, but just barely as her voice wavered.

When a few of the younger sentinels murmured amongst themselves nervously, Soraya lost her cool once more and shouted at them more harshly than was necessary. Ignoring her, Navarion tried to summon up what little mana reserves he had. The spirits told him it was too late for the female; her wounds were too deep, the stab wound in her stomach had led to vital organs being hit and her soul had already begun to slip. Unless a team of healers along with someone who could resurrect just in case were teleported to their position right at that very second, there was nothing that could be done for her. In all of his years as a secondary healer, however, he had never quite mastered the delicate act of actually telling that to people out loud; a healer was supposed to dramatically expend all their mana reserves to the bitter end no matter what. It was unprofessional and a waste of energy, but such was the norm for most adventurers.

Before he could even try, the glow faded from her eyes and several sentinels cried out in shock. He felt her soul pass out of her body though not entirely on, as if she were waiting for something; if anybody else could feel it, they didn't let on and mourned in the tearless, low key manner Kaldorei tended to have. Unlike the way Alliance or Horde races might react, nobody blamed him or the archer which at least helped him to relax a bit given the tense situation.

Her male counterpart grasped his throat in one hand and the hand of the dead female next to him in the other. Eyes shut tight, his chest heaved a bit as his body fought to breathe but the man had largely regained his self control despite the heavy blood loss. The mana burned archer stepped back, granting Navarion and Soraya space as he tried to charge up his voodoo to heal the man's throat, though the outlook wasn't good; both carotid arteries had been severed and the wind pipe was cut. Ignoring the glow of his own palms, Navarion ran over his mental list of steps to save the man: he'd need to ignore the blood flow which would sound like a roaring river once he channeled his spell, mend the tissue from the inside of the arteries first and then seal the top and the skin last, physically pull the upper and lower part of the man's neck together as he worked internally to 'weld' the neck flesh back together-

"Hey," he mumbled as a hand soaked in blood gripped his wrist, giving everyone around a shock.

Blood flooding the area below the man's neck and soaking into his hair, he held on to Navarion's wrist weakly before the healing could commence. The soldier's own eyes flickered, their glow affected as his life drained out of him but his mind still lucid and clear. Eyes now opened but lips pursed, his eyebrows furrowed into what seemed to be a silent plea as he tried to shake his head. Before he could push the man's hand aside and scramble to try and save him, Navarion noticed the tightened grip on the fallen female's hand; her engagement ring matched his.

Dumbstruck and frozen, Navarion continued to kneel over the man but allowed the glow to fade from his own hands. Calil, who was standing near by, gasped but other than that they were met with silence as the blood spilling from the man's neck dried up to a trickle. Little by little the glow from his eyes disappeared until two blue irises surrounded by the normal whites common to most other races remained, and Navarion carefully closed the man's eyelids. The hands of the two fiancés remained clasped together even when he felt the man's spirit pass on - voodoo didn't let him see it physically, but rather feel it in another sense - and join the spirit of the woman, who had been waiting until he joined her. They quickly disappeared to wherever people go when they die, and Navarion could sense what didn't quite reach the level of joy within the two souls but did sense that they were content to leave the world if they left together. Were it not inappropriate given the situation, Navarion would have smiled.

There was little time for anybody to reflect on the two sentinels who had chosen to stick by each other in life, in battle and in death. A large number of those who had survived - all but three, which was remarkable given the sheer number of the elite silithid attackers - were greviously though not fatally injured. Even the shadow hunter himself noticed a sting across his upper back and arm where, while he was throwing out healing spells,ma stray wasp had cut under his chainmail and through his leather jerkin without him even taking notice.

"A little help," the feral Druidess stated shyly, not wanting to look like she needed help.

But when Navarion turned around, he saw that she definitely did; the cuts she'd endured when in cat form weren't numerous but they were deep. The two sentinels holding her by the arms and basically propping her up each had holes punched in their armor, and the youngbloods who had bore the brunt of the initial push were not only beyond the point of exhaustion but largely scratched, stabbed and beaten to the point where many had trouble standing.

Captain Soraya ordered them to take a seat along with the surviving Druidess; the guardian Druid, conscious but stuck in bear form and partially traumatized, had to be dragged by five people next to the others.

Navarion leaned close enough such that only she could hear him. "Three casualties after being ambushed by forty someodd of the silithid elites; it isn't altogether that bad." He didn't entirely believe the words himself, but he detested the disappointed look on his commanding officer's face and didn't know how else to cheer her up. Slightly embarrassed at needing to be cheered up by one of her subordinates in the first place, Soraya nodded and patted him on the arm in thanks, needing a few seconds to compose herself before addressing the expectant soldiers.

"Calil, fetch her a mana potion," Soraya ordered while motioning to the archer who could cast a healing spell.

"Yes ma'am!" the young sentinel replied. The fact that the captain specifically tasked him with something lifted his spirits a bit and he sped off.

Soraya turned to the others, their faces grim but not totally dejected. "There were no civilian casualties or lossess of property despite the cowardly attack comprising several dozen of the silithids' best warriors," she addressed to the crowd as formally as she could. "Our three allies here are to thank for that; we need to bring them to the temple for the last rites." Turning to Navarion, she lowered her voice despite not needing to. "Please provide basic healing to the best of your ability; I'd prefer it if all those here could be present at the temple, which means they won't be available for extensive healing until a bit later."

"Yes captain," he sighed, feeling the burn from his lack of mana and knowing it would be a long night.

There wasn't much else to say. Soraya eschewed giving any sort of speech or eulogy, and doing so would have cheapened the loss of three good people anyway. Once the troops had been healed enough to walk, the two engaged sentinels and the mage who never told anybody his real name were carried through town and on to the temple in a makeshift procession. Even though no civilians had been hurt, the locals and merchants appeared quite shaken, and Soraya even banned non-military personnel from attending the farewell ritual at the temple. The attack had been relatively small in an objective sense, but it signaled that the conflict was much more serious than simple bug extermination by the beach.


	11. Trapped

By the time the funeral had taken place and all those involved in the skirmish outside the western gate had been debriefed, the night shift was almost over. Before the troops who survived the battle - all of them except three, really - could return to the barracks, they were called into the huntress lodge where Commander Lamia herself thanked them and passed on the news that they'd managed to shift schedules quickly enough to give them all an extra night off and thus could sleep in the following evening. Respectful and gracious though hurt by the loss of the two sentinels who had been engaged to each other, the weary soldiers had all retired to their quarters for the day, flooding by questions from civilian and fellow soldier alike by what had happened.

Luck would have it that Navarion shared his bunk with Dmitri, who was discreet and mindful of the fact that his friend would probably want to sleep before talking over what happened. The first night was odd, going to rest with one bunk empty and noticing that since he had no next of kin, the highborne mage's bunk had yet to be cleared out. By the morning, the bundle of berries signaling an unclaimed bed had grown back and Navarion, Dmitri and a furbolg shaman who slept on the fourth bed on their floor divided up the man's belongings for nostalgia and sulked at a tea house for a while in order to work out the sense of loss for someone who nobody truly knew.

Not having planned on a day off and not having much to do since Dmitri and Tammie were both on call (Zhenya strategically dodged Navarion's questions about her work schedule that week), the half elf, half troll wandered about the healer's tents to visit people he'd fought alongside the previous night.

Numerous tents made from silk had been set up, most of them unnecessarily tall per the norms of elven architecture. Navarion couldn't help but grin when he realized that it was the one architectural feature elves shared with the Forsaken; quite often, narrow one story buildings in both Lordaeron and northern Kalimdor were the height of what would be two story structures in Alliance or Horde lands. Towering above all the tents was a massive tree of life - wide at the base, wide at the leafy top and hollow all the way through. It's sentient eyes remained closed most of the time, occasionally opening up to spy the random wisp or butterfly and paying no mind to the elves crawling in and outside of it like it were any other domicile.

Though he hadn't learned the names of most of the sentinels from the other night, Navarion recognized the faces of those who had to remain at the healers' residence and they all looked thrilled to have a visitor. Most of them hadn't had to spend the night and were only back for follow ups. Pontus, the restoration Druid from the day the first mounds were wiped out, strolled in and out of the various tents while checking on wounds; according to his claim - and as a mere backup healer, Navarion didn't have the knowledge to confirm or deny it - the soldiers would heal more completely if the Druids and priestesses intervened as little as possible, leaving the damaged tissues to repair themselves.

After a few minutes more of visiting injured comrades, he bumped into Zorena once more after not having seen her in a while. Wearing an apron bearing old blood stains, she appeared to be in between shifts and was relaxing in a tent for staff members only, resting her hooves on to of a footstool.

"It's alright, you can sit for just a minute," she chortled when he hesitated to take a spot that one of the full time healers could need.

"Don't mind if I do, though I'm technically not a main healer," he thanked her graciously while sitting on a naturally grown but mobile chair across from her.

The tent was cramped with the two of them in there, having been designed for three night elf sized people to sit comfortably rather than for a Tauren and a half troll to hunch over the small table in between them.

"Like your father, you're technically not a main anything, like most support classes." Her words rang true, but Zorena grinned in an uncharacteristically sly way as if she were making fun of him.

She was so serious all the time that he didn't want to quash her humor, and refrained from firing back at her lest she stiffen up again. "Jack of all trades, master of none, right?"

"As long as you're doing your part in the war effort," she replied while sliding a pile of grapes wrapped in leaves closer to the center of the table.

They shared them in silence at first; Zorena had the familiar look of mana burn that Navarion knew all too well from throwing out too many heals, and his head was still spinning at the sudden loss of comrades. Collectively, Navarion had spent almost a decade fighting around the world: either as a hired soldier for the Steamwheedle Cartel, or as the leader of a guild that had an amazing hell of a two year period before burning out, or as a supplemental mercenary for the Argent Crusade and now the Sentinel Army, or as a simple adventurer across several continents doing good wherever he could. He prided himself on supporting other fighters, healing when it was needed on the spot, protecting his allies or taking out stray enemies as needed. As much as someone who fought for a living needed to be prepared to lose people in the battlefield, the fact that it rarely happened under his watch meant that he hadn't been prepared for it. One minute, the older male sentinel had been chuckling to his jokes with the others and clinking his engagement ring against his gauntlet, and a few minutes later he had died alongside his fiancé, squeezing her hand to the very end.

He'd lost people before but it had been a long time. Lost in thought, he wondered if Calil had taken heed of his advice after seeing how fast lives could be lost in their profession and would just ask Thresha out. It seemed befitting; Navarion knew he likely wouldn't see them again once the campaign was over, but a part of him took an interest and wished them all the best.

"They went out the best way they could have," Zorena stated, breaking the silence.

Confused by her statement, Navarion's elven-looking ears pricked up while he tried figuring out who she was referring to. "You mean the engaged couple, right?"

"Yes, those two. I participated in their burial, actually - it's the first time I've helped the earth reclaim someone since I joined the Cenarion Circle."

"I'm both happy and sad for you at the same time." He relaxed back into his chair as she had done in hers, noticing the somber look on her face.

"Nobody lives forever; you and I both know that very well," she said, a wistful but not entirely sad look on her face.

Navarion knew what Zorena was referring to. Her brother, Kuma, had also been a friend of his parents from the campaign on another planet decades ago. Like his younger sister - a full thirty years younger - Kuma had been strictly a healer and an herbalist, refusing to hurt other living beings. When he finally passed away from old age, he left Zorena in the care of the Circle and Navarion's parents - his father especially - stricken by grief. The funeral had likely been the last time Navarion had ever seen Zorena, and so far during their many months serving in New Nendis, he had never seen that melancholy side of her. Perhaps the loss of a loved one left a pain that never entirely went away; and at that thought, the half elf/half troll felt too much guilt to entertain the subject any longer.

"What happened to the bear kid?" Navarion asked randomly.

"You mean the guardian Druid that was injured?"

"Yes, he was a good guy but he looked like he was in pretty bad shape after the fight. He took the brunt of it."

"Oh yes, him. Poor guy," Zorena sighed while clasping her hands and leaning forward. As infrequently as she and Navarion saw each other, he probably felt more comfortable around her than anyone else due to old family ties, and they both relaxed and opened up easily. "I don't know. He's eager, but I don't think he's cut out for this line of work. This is between you and me, of course."

"Yes, no doubt."

"He went through a really awful ordeal but he let it affect him. Out of fear or whatever, he stayed in bear form which actually made healing him easier but not carrying him. He basically went comatose and unresponsive, sort of just not reacting to anything. We're keeping him under supervision for now - not that he'd try to leave or anything - but it's all in his head. He'd be better off here at the healer's tent than out there on the battlefield."

"He isn't likely to take such news very well," Navarion thought out loud with a mouthful of berries. "I don't know him that well, but I have a feeling."

"No, you're right. Most people never do. But it's for his own good. He isn't soft, he's just-"

"Zorena, I think my cut is infected!" sang the feral Druidess from the other night. Her voice drifted out from one of the tents, and she sounded uncharacteristically cheeky in contrast to how stoic she had been in the heat of battle.

When the Tauren just grumbled and facepalmed, Navarion knew there was a little more behind the comment. "Inside joke?" he asked just as cheekily, finally taking a little jab.

Peeking at him from between her large, furry fingers, he could see it irritated her but didn't anger her. "Inside joke. I'd better go, or she'll only become more petulant."

"Alright, I'll leave you to it then," he chortled himself while helping her stand up.

Outside the tent, he watched her walk away to another tent and a series of giggles and shrieks ensued from the feral druidess as Zorena probably tried to smother her with medical pillows before finally casting a cleanse spell. Snickering but finding no more reason to stand around, Navarion tucked his hands into his pockets and strolled away, resigned to enjoy a pleasant day off without feeling the need to plan everything out.

He didn't get far before a flash of gold from between the trees caught his eye.

Stopping on the side of a narrower road in the mostly empty warehouse district, he honed in his vision on a small wood between the rows of hollowed out trees that could roughly be referred to as city blocks. The light flashed again, as if there were some sort of movement back there, and he could tell that she couldn't see him.

They hadn't had a meaningful conversation in five days due to their conflicting patrol schedules and hadn't slept with each other in three. Though given how things had been slightly less stressful between them lately, Navarion would be content just to sit and chat with Zhenya, and perhaps prod her to open up a little. She never discussed her past nor did she ever ask about his, but it was clear she'd become jaded about relationships due to past experiences. It had to have been a year and a half since they'd been sleeping with each other and a little less than that since they'd actually started behaving like a couple in private. She might not be willing to behave that way in public, but at least he could push her to-

Navarion froze at the sound of another man's voice.

"Sure, I have plenty of robes that would fit your size," the low voice of a night elf man carried between the trees. "I only import the best; you know me."

You know me?Navarion thought, his blood pressure already rising. There Zhenya was, sitting in a secluded woodland in an isolated part of town discussing clothing with a man whose voice he didn't recognize. Trust thrown to the wayside, Navarion swiftly galloped in between the trees, his nimble elven feet carrying him soundlessly until he was already right on top of them.

Literally swinging around the side of the last tree that obscured his view, he found a scene that was sufficient for him to justify his anger. Leaning back on a boulder with her back arched and her legs crossed in a suggestive way she'd never do in public, Zhenya was dressed in a rather expensive looking silk outfit, black and covered in floral patterns. A well dressed tailor wearing the clothes typical of traveling merchants knelt before her, fiddling through a bag of what Navarion assumed to be cloths or some such shit, but he could no longer focus on that. The look of absolute shock and guilt on Zhenya's face spoke volumes.

Noticing that they were no longer alone, the tailor gave shadow hunter an annoyed yet dismissive look and stood up. "Do you mind, friend? We were sort of trying to be alone out here." The tailor's voice was slightly condescending but surprisingly non-aggressive, as if he didn't think they were doing anything wrong.

Her head rapidly shifting back and forth between the two, Zhenya stuttered and tried to say a few things that never formed into actual words. Leaning against the rock, she froze and then tried to wipe her lips in the expensive silk sleeve when she realized that Navarion noticed her smudged lipstick. And she never wore lipstick.

And then he blacked out.

It was only for about half a second, but he definitely blacked out. He knew that because even though he didn't move more than half a step, the blood on his fist and the terrified tailor stumbling and falling over tree roots as he fled with his bag of cloth must have been caused by something. Yet it all followed literally right at the same time that his memory could recall Zhenya wiping her lipstick on her sleeve; something was missing from what he could remember consciously.

When hearing returned to him, he turned to the side and noticed that Zhenya hadn't moved from her spot. She was saying something else to him but he couldn't hear her at first; his heart pounded so hard in his chest that he began to feel physically sick. Waving her hands and shaking her head, she looked genuinely afraid in the first time he'd known her. She was a paladin and a tough one at that; he didn't know if he had truly been that terrifying or if she was truly being crushed by guilt. He had difficulty believing the latter.

Up and down his spine, a tingling sensation ran and he twitched, causing her to jump. Her voice began to approach the sound of normal volume in his ears, but the whirlwind inside of him clouded his mind.

Navarion had cheated on women before, and a few had cheated on him. When it happened in the past, he took his revenge and then was done with the matter; given his checkered past and questionable morals up until recently, he had always accepted infidelity and backstabbing as part of the territory of the lifestyle he'd led and the guild he'd been a part of. The look of embarrassed guilt Zhenya didn't even bother trying to hide, the fact that she was capable of defending herself physically yet merely shrank from him when he grabbed her by the wrist, the feeling of being an idiot for not having seen it coming...it was all familiar. It shouldn't have hurt so much.

But it did hurt. Too much. This was supposed to have been his turning point, the time where he matured, grew up and started behaving like a responsible adult. Everyone he'd grown up with was either married or settled down, having exercised whatever demons they bore through the adventures of their youth; he was supposed to have done that. Zhenya was the bad girl who would finally calm down and commit to this bad boy, both of them learning from the mistakes of their pasts and making the conscious choice to live faithfully and respectably.

Illusions shattered, Navarion felt a pain in the pit of his stomach as he shoved Zhenya hard enough for her to fall on her ass in a pile of leaves and walked away. The primal part of his troll brain screamed at him to throttle her, and then catch up with the tailor and cut off his hand and foot on opposite sides. The infuriatingly objective, removed part of his elf brain urged him instead to leave her then and there and ask himself what he had done wrong to cause this and how he could improve himself. The two conflicting modes of thinking clashed inside his head so loudly that he closed his eyes to try and block them out in futility, leading him to step in a hole in the ground, trip and nearly fall in the woods.

Zhenya caught up to him, stupidly grabbing him by the arms as she begged him to listen. Fighting himself more than her, Navarion reached back and grabbed her by her one intact horn, twisting her around in a painful wrestling hold. She didn't resist or even try to stomp on his toes with one of her hooves, breaking character entirely.

She was not a nice person; in fact, she'd be the first person to freely admit that. Zhenya was stuck up, flippant, self-centered and narcissistic. Looking at her was like looking into a mirror. And yet there she was, clinging to him even when he restrained her, her face imitating an emotion that he couldn't bring himself to truly believe. He wanted to hate her for bringing him back to a place he'd tried to leave, for bringing back upon him memories of sins and betrayals he'd worked so hard to expunge from his lifestyle. He wanted to hate her, to even mock her, to laugh at her remorse and dump her on the side of the road as he forced her to watch her own chance for a normal, more grown up life walk away.

But when she didn't respond to his slurs and growls, and didn't react to the iron grip he held her in, he faltered. Never had she behaved so demurely before, not toward anybody. He tried to tell himself that all the words spilling from her smudged lips were lies, that she wasn't sorry and wasn't in a wrong or abnormal state of mind. But she wouldn't give up, pleading with him to stay and listen to her. Sliding her arms up and around his neck, she begged him to hold her, to forgive her even when she admitted there was little for him to understand about the situation. Anger seething to the point where he worried that his heart would burn a hole into his chest, he stiffened up and refused to melt or soften in her arms.

She persevered, trying her hardest to get through to him. Only a few hours later, he wouldn't be able to recall any of the specific words they'd both said; just that they'd said them. She ran her fingers through the lower part of his mane at the base of his neck, scratching his hide lightly as she whispered her apologies to him a hundred times.

They sat there for a long time, ignoring the flash of silver eyes peeking at them from afar as they both said things they probably didn't mean. Whether she truly meant her apology or not, he couldn't quite know. She promised him so much, even shed tears for the first time since he'd known her, telling him things he knew she expected him to want to hear. And as much as he wanted to hear them, he held on to her there in the woods, unable to speak after some time and wondering how he hadn't managed to escape the cycle after so long.


	12. The Low

Navarion stared at the ceiling of the barracks, counting the number of rings on the solid part of the hollowed out tree. The growth of the ancient of war they all slept in had been surprisingly well done; everything on the inside was perfectly symmetrical, level and designed for habitation. This despite the fact that the outside was just a normal tree in the sense that the branches and leaves ran everywhere. Of course, the tree had several massive roots that looked like legs and it also had a face, but aside from that it was pretty normal.

Focusing on the intricacies of their barracks at least gave him something to focus his mind on, something other than the incident in the woods.

"Let's take a break," they had agreed with one another. Those were the words they had said at the end: let's take a break. He didn't even know what that meant. Zhenya probably didn't, either. The two of them had been so worked up at the end of it that they searched for any solution, anything at all, to try and salvage whatever weird connection they had.

It shouldn't feel that different; Zhenya had always rejected public shows of affection and in the past had even embarrassed him publicly by denying that they were together. Insincerely apologetic in when they were alone together, she'd always try to make up for it after whatever tiffs they'd had but the fact remained that their relationship was mostly physical and entirely in private. The only thing that had changed now was that they weren't sleeping with each other for the time being and wouldn't even be spending time in private. The pain of separation caused him to question what they actually were.

During the first few days, he'd just been numb; all his free time after work had been spent sleeping in early and he'd avoided people as much as possible. Once again, he was quite lucky that his roommates in the top floor of their specific ancient of war consisted of Dmitri, who was the epitome of discretion; a furbolg shaman who could understand Darnassian but not speak it; and yet another apprentice Druid who lacked the experience to formally enlist, and found himself instead relegated to serving alongside the mercenaries and sleeping on the bunk that formerly belonged to the highborne Mage. Two of his comrades wouldn't speak to him unless spoken to and the third proved unable to speak to him at all, and so he had the privacy he needed. A few days turned into a week and before he knew it a second was upon them; all the while Navarion had been a ghost, mentally numb and drifting in and out as he tried to find time to be by himself.

Thus it came as a pleasant surprise when he bumped into Ragnar, the huge dark troll bearing a name that sounded dwarven and who had been granted the actually rather prestigious job of serving as Commander Lamia's personal bodyguard (a.k.a. meat shield). Originally, Navarion had been waiting in line at the food distribution area; the ancients had gone into the season for pomegranates and as quickly as they could regrow them, soldiers both enlisted and hired from mercenary camps would line up to buy as much as they would be individually allotted. Much to the chagrin of the pandaren silk merchants behind them, the half elf and the dark troll were already near the front of the line as they talked.

"Ragnar, has anybody told you that your name sounds dwarven?" Navarion asked the big lug at some point during their idle, mostly Zandali conversation.

Weak in his own first language, Ragnar had to think about the question before he could answer. "My name...dwarf...yeah. Not sound, is."

It took Navarion a moment to think about the answer himself. Common was his first language, Darnassian his second from an early age. Even though he learned voodoo from his father and by virtue of that a bit of Zandali, he didn't really learn it until he began noticing women and, given the proximity of Ratchet to Durotar and the Crossroads, interacting with Darkspear women a little more. Which earned him disapproval from the whole family, as even his jungle troll father often reminded Navarion of his lifespan and how he would outlive most of the women he showed interest in, but it proved a strong motivating factor to learn his father's language. Trying to communicate with a more primitive dark troll, however, proved exceedingly difficult for him; neither of them were technically fluent, they used different dialects, they had different accents and Ragnar's own mistakes often left the half Darkspear confused.

"So...you name actually is dwarven, and not some rare Zandali loan word?"

Tilting his head at the term 'loan word,' the Shadowtooth just jumped into what was probably the longest story he'd ever tell. "Before born I...mama papa look for treasure. Go to beach north of Moonglade. Kalimdor coast. On beach they look and find can. It's from Dwarfistan. Has write name Brewfest and brew man, Ragnar. Mama papa like dwarves, dwarves have many metals. Think finding metal on beach sign from Loa. So Ragnar, I."

"That's...actually a logical and fascinating explanation," Navarion chuckled. The line was going nowhere fast as a trainee priestess at the front decided that she wanted to completely change her order and then began taking extra orders from a group of her friends that hadn't waited in line, causing a bit of finger wagging from the older elves. Grumbling, the half elf continued. "Come to think of it, I don't think I ever asked how you wound up here, serving in the army of the Kaldorei."

"Normal," Ragnar replied quickly but while shaking his head for no readily available reason. "Dark troll, don't like foreigner. But Shadowtooth make pact, Starchildren." It took Navarion a minute to realize that 'Starchildren' meant children of the stars, the literal translation of the name Kaldorei; given that the night elves descended from dark trolls, it made sense that Ragnar would refer to them by a tribal name rather than as a separate race. "Starchildren fight in War Third, before big ago. Shadowtooth follow Starchildren. Starchildren bosses, generals, importants, always want Shadowtooth bodyguard, need or not need, still want. Starchildren call it..." He trailed off and then briefly broke into very broken, mispronounced but understandable Darnassian. "...prestige; show off important."

"So you just decided to become a body guard one day, just like that?"

"No, not like that. Join mercenary camp I, along with satyr good," Ragnar explained while pointing to the reformed satyr whose name nobody could remember. The horned man was apparently already glaring at them, making no secret of the fact that he hated being pointed at. "Want work at foreign, save yen, use yen to build house for woman I."

Although it shouldn't have come as a surprise, Navarion did crook his neck back as if it were strange news. "You have a lady friend waiting for you back home? Congratulations!"

"Not have woman now. But want after finish meating shield. Will go home I, build house, find woman."

Navarion snorted cynically through his nose. "If only it were that easy here in the foreign lands, my friend." He didn't elaborate and Ragnar didn't seem to notice his downcast tone, and the two men waited in line and ignored the irritating satyr until they could get their pomegranates, as well as a few for the nervous, hungry pandaren behind them.

They only had a few minutes to eat with the furry visiting merchants before the familiar hoof clips of Tammie strode up behind the grassy spot they'd chosen to sit down in.

"Whoa, you still work here?" the vindicator joked while eyeing the pomegranates.

"I've been a little tired lately is all, though I suppose a particularly annoying, disgustingly cheery vindicator could help cheer me up," Navarion shot right back, silencing the uncomfortable pandaren merchants by openly bickering.

"Oh ha ha, very funny, gimme them pomegranates!" Tammie grunted like one of the guys while kneeling and snatching one of his pieces of fruit away.

For a second, he considered pointing out that she shared Ragnar's habit of talking while chewing, but he didn't want to offend both of his friends and settled for chatting about Kalimdor versus Pandaria silk with the merchants for a few minutes. Eventually Ragnar's break was up and Commander Lamia sent a runner to inform him that she intended on walking to the temple in public and required him to walk in front of her entourage; as gracious and humble as the commander was, she did seem to fall into the trope that Navarion had previously heard of where night elf notables often paid to have dark troll guards standing around just to look and feel important. Though, in her defense as she thought, as the local military commander she probably would be target number two after the head priestess of the local branch of the Sisterhood of Elune.

Shortly thereafter, the merchants excused themselves in anticipation of the midnight market and went to visit the city's only coffeehouse - unlike tea, coffee wasn't particularly popular among the Kaldorei and only a single cafe in the region served it. Without being told, Tammie stood up after wiping her hands on the grass and nodded to Navarion as if signaling for him to stand up.

"Walk with me, talk with me," she said in an overly nonchalant way, as if overacting.

He stood up and followed her regardless, even while openly laughing at her attempt to sound cool. Moving away from the food distribution area, she led him around the winding paths of the military quarter and in between the various hollowed out ancients that formed both living quarters and sentient storage units.

"You're doing surprisingly little talking-"

"But a whole lot of walking," Tammie interrupted, still thinking that she sounded cool. They slowed their pace and hung to one side, taking care not to block the way of any on duty sentinels. "Look, I'll cut to the chase: Sergeant Fyndir noticed that you don't have that sprint in your step anymore. He's at the shooting range and wants to practice firing your pistol a bit."

"So he sent you after me just for that?" Navarion asked incredulously and slightly annoyed that his day off was under demand by the officer presiding over the male barracks.

"It's probably a good way to blow off steam. You should feel happy that he thought of you - many officers don't ever want to know about the personal lives of their subordinates at all."

Honing his vision straight ahead, Navarion felt himself unintentionally bristle at the implication of his personal life being the business of anybody else. "I guess so," he mumbled, once more without intending to do so.

Silently, they walked a little while longer until the drill yard came into view. There were a few dummies and a dugout used for melee combat training, but the largest area by far was for training in ranged combat. Like most other sections of the city that officials didn't want just anybody wandering in and out of, the drill yard was surrounded by high, naturally grown walls composed of narrow tree trunks growing closely together. It provided the perfect safe environment for the less experienced among the night elves - those less than a hundred years old - to shoot at the dummy targets without the risk of hitting any bystanders.

There were a few benches under an awning, granting a row of officers a good vantage point from which they could berate hapless young recruits whenever their arrows struck a quarter of an inch off the mark. Fyndir was there, clipboard in hand as he sat on his own like the rest of the officers did while shouting at the recruits.

Tammie brushed past Navarion on her way back out of the drill yard. "Put in a good word for me because I did what he asked me to do," she whispered as if it were some state secret. "Thanks for the pomegranates."

"No and you're welcome," he whispered back while ambling over toward the benches where Fyndir sat. The decidedly grizzled night elf noticed the more upbeat half night elf approaching and strained his face in what he seemed to think passed as a smile.

"Greetings, Hearthglen. How are you feeling?"

The question struck Navarion as odd immediately, as the sergeant never seemed to ask or care about how anybody was doing. Trying not to show his suspicion, he forced a less strained smile back. "I'm fine, sergeant. Vindicator Tammie told me that you wanted to see me shoot?" he stated, though his voice went up at the end like a question.

"Huh? Or, right, that's correct. But how are you doing?" Fyndir asked for a second time.

"I'm fine, sergeant," Navarion answered as plainly as he could. It wasn't difficult to figure out that Fyndir had heard about his moping. As much as Captain Soraya had eased up on him, she probably wasn't quite capable of actually showing concern for someone's feelings and had asked Fyndir to do it.

"Good to hear. Sit down for a minute."

Already sensing the coming lecture, Navarion avoided the urge to sigh and did as he was told. He'd already done a lot more talking that night than he had for the entire previous week and didn't quite care for the prospect of being juggled from conversation partner to conversation parter, but had little recourse.

Fyndir probably didn't enjoy the conversation any more than Navarion did, but the sergeant tried his best to ensure everything was fine with his subordinate regardless. "How's the Hearthglen family doing? Private life is in order?" Fyndir asked a little stiffly, as if he didn't really know how to display concern for others.

"The family is alright," Navarion replied respectfully, already itching to stand back up and end the conversation. "Things here are adequate."

"Home life is the most important thing, soldier. Life while serving has its ups and downs; the best we can do is just focus on what we have waiting for us when we go home." For the first time, Fyndir's voice had a measure of sincerity in it, as if he were truly speaking from the heart.

"That's...actually quite inspiring, Sergeant. And a good reminder. I suppose it's too easy to forget sometimes."

"A reminder is what we all need from time to time. Don't let the drama of life off the battlefield here distract you. It happens to the best of us, but make sure to rise above," Fyndir replied just a bit too knowingly.

Navarion shrank in his seat a bit, realizing that Fyndir must have heard about a little more than just moping around. Which then made Navarion wonder how much Tammie knew, or how much Captain Soraya knew...he was not given to social anxiety, but he didn't prefer his personal problems to be on public display. It wasn't like Zhenya to spread rumors or discuss such things, but neither of them were perfect; details may have slipped.

"I try to rise above drama as much as I can," he replied while concealing his nervousness.

Fyndir must have sensed it regardless, but instead of poking at it, the stern sergeant pulled a shocker and actually softened a bit. "Relationships at work can cause issues. We can't stop how we feel, but problems can happen. My wife was once my commanding officer, you know. It caused problems for both of us."

Eyes wide and breathing still, Navarion paused while trying to figure out whether the admission was an invitation for questions or a mere brusque attempt to show that he wasn't alone and then be done with it. Feeling a bit adventurous, he assumed the former and decided to push just a little. "I would not have guessed, Sergeant; you're very up front all the time."

"I was young once as well," Fyndir sighed. "The captain of my unit trained me and taught me everything I know. Things were great professionally, and personally, too. She asked me to marry her the day I was promoted and no longer her subordinate, and thus no longer a potential card to be played against her if anyone wanted to stab her in the back and accuse her of treating me preferentially."

"That sounds relatively drama-free. Congratulations, by the way."

"You have my thanks. But drama occurred, and we let it affect us. I was promoted along with some female colleagues, and they immediately had much higher salaries than I did. Various explanations were given, but it all boiled down to gender; the matriarchy tends to hold sway here."

Unable to stifle a small laugh, Navarion tried to excuse himself. "Outside of night elven lands, it's the polar opposite," he explained quickly, not wanting to offend the sergeant. "Like, totally, completely opposite. Back in Ratchet, businesswomen often have more difficulty applying for loans than businessmen and so forth. It's opposite but I guess I sort of understand what you mean by bias."

Unoffended, Fyndir brushed off the light laughter and continued. "I was alive when our people were members of that Alliance thing for a few years," he said while nodding. "It was a huge shock for us, how all these human and dwarven men would come and talk to the Druids when requesting troops and assistance as if they had any power, only for the Druids to turn around and just repeat the requests to the Priestesses for approval. It was like two polar opposites clashing. That was around the time we got married, when our membership in the faction was ending and all, and the old ways came back. Anyway, things sadly didn't become better except when my wife became handicapped."

"Goddess be with her, I'm sorry to hear that."

"She was injured while fighting a demonic outbreak, the way she had wished it to happen if she did ever have to retire. No joke, my wife was the best our contingent had at the time." Fyndir beamed for a moment, showing emotion that was absolutely astounding from someone like him. "My salary was actually still lower than her pension and injured veteran's stipend, which was only supposed to be a percent of her salary from active duty. But we found that when we didn't have to deal with any drama at work, it was easier to deal with the drama at home. There was talk and rumor mongering at the barracks, people making light of our financial situation, but it didn't bother us; our home life and relationship was strong, and once work was removed from the picture it was easier to deal with."

Thoughtful and attentive, Navarion mulled it over and sought for the message being delivered to him. "So you're saying that I need to minimize the drama at work, I suppose?"

"I don't like to give direct advice; I'm just passing on my own experience. Take from it whatever you will; that's not for me to dictate to you. I'll save the dictatorship for the drill yard here."

"Alright, thanks all the same," Navarion chuckled, resigned to figuring out what it all meant once he could be alone. He leaned forward and looked at Fyndir, silently asking permission to stand.

"As you were soldier. I just needed to make sure you felt fine enough to fulfill your duties."

"Fine and ready to shoot," Navarion answered, a little more confidence evident in his voice at the end.

Satisfied for the time being, Fyndir looked him over a bit before nodding slowly. "Alright. Why don't you take aim at one of those targets out there and show us what you can do."

"Yes sir!" Navarion walked forward toward the markers in the ground signifying the various distances to the targets.

By the time he reached the appropriate distance, Fyndir had already begun chatting quietly with another officer, obviously having mainly been interested in seeing himself if one of the soldiers in the barracks he supervised was moping to the point of being ineffective on the battlefield. Within the first few seconds of the end of their exchange his fears seemed alleviated and he lost interest.

Which was fine with Navarion, actually. He knew he was a decent enough shot and didn't need somebody looking over his shoulder, but he didn't mind the opportunity to practice, either. Even when off duty, keeping his holster on him was a simple habit; whenever he was back home his family complained that it was like carrying a live grenade, but years living on cartel ships and bunking at port cities had made him cautious. Not paranoid, as his father was; just cautious.

A few elves were practicing their bows nearby - mostly mercenaries like him. The regular enlisted troops tended to have chips on their shoulders and only the young among them would be seen practicing in front of others; the more experienced often pretended that they never needed to practice, a sort of modern vice they developed due to the influx of youngbloods into the Sentinel military. Were his mother still active she'd probably slap some sense into those types, but he didn't mind so much. If anything, it just meant there were fewer people around to criticize his every move.

His ammo bag mostly had cheap bullets he carried around in case he encountered any muggers or wild animals during his strolls through the city woodlands. All for the better; using it up wouldn't be a financial loss. Removing his gun and taking aim, Navarion loosened his shoulder and squeezed - not pulled - the trigger. The first shot rang out and although his pistol was quiet by the standards of firearms, elves were not used to guns and one of the archers to his right jumped, causing her arrow to hit the ground only a few yards in front of her. Giving the elven and signal for apologizing, the half elf continued to focus on the training target; he'd clipped its chin and hit it in the neck, which would have been debilitating in a real battle. Good enough, he though; as a supporting class, a shadow hunter only needed to protect allies and disable enemies, and in the event that he had to fight alone then crippling an enemy would be enough.

Despite the dirty look from the elf next to him, Navarion tried to train his vision and focus only on the target. He hadn't meant to disrupt anybody's practice and besides, if the Sentinels were relying on foreign mercenaries to supplement their military, they'd have to get used to foreign ways of fighting. He lined up the sight on the top of his pistol with the training dummy's leg, hoping to blow its kneecap out...

...only to have an arrow pierce the knee of the dummy first.

The cheeky elf to his right, who had been disrupted by his shooting, apparently felt like registering an official complaint. Via his peripheral vision, he could see her turning to stare at him but he ignored her again. This was supposed to be a pleasant evening of shooting and he didn't need to instigate any arguments with a comrade. He smirked to himself, silently marveling at how much he'd changed since he'd begun traveling the world and fighting alongside various different peoples; a decade ago, the flagrant challenge would have prompted him to make a smartass remark.

Apparently offended by his smirk, the archer fired a second arrow and hit the training dummy in the crotch, sending a not so subtle message that time. Not irritated but slightly pushed by the challenge, Navarion thought about it for a moment. He thought twice.

Keeping his gun trained on his own dummy, he pretended that he didn't notice the archer looking at him until the last minute. Using his fast reflexes, he shifted his aim at the last second after only the slightest of movements, hitting the archer's target dummy between the eyes. She gasped, taking offense yet again at the more aggressive display. The two of them stood for a moment as if daring one another to be the next to make a move.

Then, in a defiant display from both sides, they began their races. Aiming diagonally and probably endangering one another, the archer began knocking and releasing three arrows for every bullet Navarion fired, competing to tear apart each other's practice dummies. His bullets were louder and messier than her faster and more accurate arrows, and after a while it became a race to see who could ruin one of the dummies the fastest. As if from some sign from the Goddess, his ammo bag emptied just as the same time her quiver did, and they found themselves jittery with excitement and nervously looking around to be sure that their commanding officers were still preoccupied in their chats and hadn't noticed the unsafe and inappropriate competition.

Seeing that the coast was clear, Navarion stepped back from the shooting range first, almost in a daze at how quickly the slightly immature competition had started and finished after little to no escalation or buildup. He already knew who his opponent had been before he even turned enough to see her.

"You lose," Astariel chirped at him quietly as they both hurried out of the shooting range before anybody ratted them out for having probably violated a few of the range rules.

"That's what you think," he replied, though she was already walking in the other direction once they exited from the fence surrounding the range, both of them acting nonchalant as if nothing had happened.

A narrow road bordered the entire range, wedged in between the fence and the surrounding woods that served as a sound barrier to shield the rest of the city from the clamor of the practicing sentinels. He stood outside the exit gate for a moment to watch her thistle colored ponytail lying over her light purple cloak, this time not looking back at him. It was amazing how nonchalant she could be; Astariel had her sense of humor but she hadn't seemed like the type to be so spontaneous or risky. Perhaps there's a different side to everybody, he thought while watching her round a bend at a corner formed by the woods and out of sight.

Spirits whispered to him of the person approaching, and he had a feeling it was Zorena before he even heard the clopping of her hooves.

"She's a good girl," the Tauren healer said in an uncharacteristically blunt manner.

Navarion turned to see her walking up next to him, pulling a light blue wool coat over her arms even though it wasn't really that chilly. "Are you cold?" he asked curiously.

"It isn't that chilly, but I prefer to be warm most of the time," Zorena replied, standing right next to him. It was a long, empty road aside from a few chatting sentinels far off in the distance. "I was just going for a walk, in case you're wondering why I'm out here."

"Oh, I had assumed that already." The conversation skipped a beat and he began to wonder if she expected him to respond to her earlier comment. "Astra is a good friend, and a great person."

"She likes you," Zorena said in a way that was direct yet also pleasant in a way only she could pull off.

"No, I don't think so...she just has a good sense of humor."

Furrowing her brow in suspicion, Zorena examined him for a moment. "You don't believe that. You're saying it, but you don't believe it."

For a second he tried to think of a way to reject her statement, but found nothing. In fact, he'd been aware of the fact a few months ago but had tried to put distance in between them. "Ah...well...she is a good woman. I wouldn't call somebody over forty years old a girl out of respect, but she's a good woman."

"So...?" Zorena asked expectantly, as if trying to push him into yet another rebound relationship. Which simply wouldn't work when he still found himself pining for Zhenya.

"So it can't go beyond that; my heart belongs to someone else," he explained, noticing that Zorena actually looked disappointed that he wasn't interested in pursuing Astariel. "Someone who is like me: guilty, flawed and weary from sins and regret." He tried laughing at his self deprecating joke to lighten the mood, but for the first time found himself a bit depressed at how cynical he sounded.

"That's a rather pessimistic view. Anybody can change," Zorena argued, though her tone was less pushy than it had been a few moments before.

"Then let people like me find other tarnished but changed individuals to chase after," he replied. He did feel sincerely confident in his claim, but almost felt as if he were disrespecting both his friend Astariel and his more-than-a-friend Zhenya at the same time. "Astra is a good girl, as you said. She'd be better off finding some wholesome village guy; they'd be more deserving of each other."

Disappointment evident, Zorena thought it over for a moment. She didn't seem like she would push the issue much more. "I'm sorry to hear that, to be honest," she started cautiously, and even her body language became a bit more guarded. "And if that's the case, you need to make that clear to her. Because Astra looks like she's interested in you, and if you continue to act as if everything is normal, she's only going to become more attached."

Immediately, Navarion felt pressured. He knew neither Zorena nor even Astariel herself meant to do it, but he felt pressured. Attention from women was nothing new to him, including attention from women he wasn't interested in. But Astariel was different. He found her attractive physically and personality-wise, and that's part of what made it so difficult. She came off as innocent, naive even, and he knew a man like him wasn't suitable for her, nor did he quite feel...well, to even merely think the words felt disrespectful to two women in his life once more. But he didn't feel like he deserved the typical good girl like Astariel. There was no other word he could think of even though he detested it; to speak of deserving felt disrespectful. Disrespectful to Zhenya because it was as if he was viewing her like she was lower than Astariel. Disrespectful to Astariel because he didn't want to view his friend as an object to be worked for and then possessed. His thoughts became muddled until he wished he actually could be caught up in conversation with a group of people again, away from his thoughts.

"I will, Zorena...trust me, I will," he sighed while motioning for her to follow him. "I'll figure out a way to tell her politely. But not tonight, alright? I need to clear my mind of some things first."

Nodding, she followed him back into town for the night they both happened to have off duty. There were always local civilians at the tea houses interested in the colorful visitors. For sure they could find some people outside their social circle to meet; anything to remove the sudden burden Navarion knew nobody placed on his shoulders except himself, and to find a way to stop feeling pressure and just relax as he told his friend he wanted to just be friends and tried to patch things up with his ex girlfriend who denied having ever been his girlfriend.


	13. Banality

Open preparation for war: that was the title of the latest edition of the New Nendis Gazette that evening.

The announcement had been made weeks and weeks ago that an extermination campaign would be undertaken against the local silithid outbreak. Nothing was new in terms of official acknowledgement, but there were a number of developments in the besieged yet unfinished city. Construction - or growth, more accurately - hadn't even been complete in all quarters of the walled, rebuilt city when the second attack by silithid wasp strikers occurred. Having learned their lessons from the first, the wall guards - who now had a few veterans added to the regiments of mostly youngbloods - dealt the killing blows much more efficiently. Also unlike the first attack, there were no casualties - just a few nicks and scratches.

The attack had scared civilians regardless, however, and that was most strongly felt in the local economy. Frightened citizens could be dealt with; foreign merchants, however, had the option to leave. It didn't matter if the locals in question were night elves, sand trolls, pandaren or leper gnomes; there was no surer way to spur s government into action than to threaten business. From the first night that the midnight market had a few empty merchant stalls, the local branch of the Sentinel Navy sent troop transport ships to Feathermoon Stronghold, Rut'theran City and New Auberdine before the request for troop increased had even been drafted. Foreign exchange reserves of gold coins minted in Orgrimmar and bank notes from Gadgetzan had become a drug for the supposedly isolationist and nationalistic Sentinels, and a threat to international trade was a threat to New Nendis itself.

News of the favorable responses from garrisons in the three more developed cities spread like wildfire, due in part to intentional seeding of said news in the tea houses and market places by Kaldorei nightblades who functioned not only as assassins and spies but also effective covert propagandists. The city's sole coffee house, the haunt of outlanders and wealthy human importers from the Alliance especially, had been a particularly important target for spreading the news, and much to Commander Lamia's delight, the seeded publicity for the troop increase paid off.

For the already stationed troops both enlisted as regular soldiers and hired from mercenary camps, that meant quite a bit of extra work. The first transport ship was set to dock from New Auberdine, a similarly ancient night elf city that had been destroyed but later rebuilt by popular demand. Every new soldier would need to be guided by an assigned 'buddy' on arrival to the most recently grown ancients of war to choose their bunks, stash away their belongings and then survey the patrol routes of the city. The fact that so many of the civilians had crowded around the finally completed naval yard on the opposite end of the beach from the commercial docks didn't make things easier; heavily armored huntresses along with heavy set guardian Druids had to form a makeshift living wall to stop all the well wishers and grateful locals from overwhelming the assuredly tired and disoriented sentinel soldiers after a week long boat trip. Loud cheers rang out when the new arrivals first left the transport ships and congregated in organized groups at the shipyard, warming weary hearts but also distracting the logistics specialists trying to assign guides to each new arrival - all eighty of them.

Off to one side, three plainclothes troops - two mercenaries and one enlisted - waited for three newcomers they were expected to greet and guide. Captain Soraya had instructed Navarion, Thresha and Tammie to wait off to one side while she located their three assignees to guide.

Although Thresha was usually rather solemn for her young (by elven standards) age, she had easily been infected by the more upbeat nature of Tammie, who would always find a way to fill silence with her outdated jokes and lingo from a decade ago.

"I can't remember the last time I saw this many soldiers gathered outside of war time," the vindicator remarked, letting the pitch of her voice shift up and down as if her comment were hilarious. Her attitude achieved its goal, however, and Thresha reacted in kind.

"Oh, it's inspiring, isn't it!" the pureblooded night elf chortled, shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun. "Their presence alone is sure to raise everybody's spirits."

"And everybody's spirits are sure to be raised!" Tammie chortled right back, not the least bit embarrassed by the fact that her two companions were laughing more at her boisterous behavior than what she had actually said.

Far more organized than any other mortal military, the eighty sentinels waited in small groups of three or four on the docks of the naval yard. Off in the distance, Navarion could spot Soraya and a few other officers taking names, hometowns and ID numbers - one of the few practices of the Alliance that the Sentinels held on to years after leaving the faction - onto their overcrowded clipboards. While the officers were busy accounting for all the arrivals as well as the handful of military service providers and logistics workers on the transport ship, the three plainclothes friends sat in the sand just off of the wooden boardwalk crowded with new arrivals and local officers alike.

"This is more comfortable," Tammie sighed comfortably while plopping down sideways.

Navarion fought to remain focused on the conversation, though the tribulations of his personal life constantly tried to jump into his mind. If anything, the pleasant chat in the sand while they waited for their assignees to be sent over to them was just what he had needed, if he could only pay attention. "What do you two think will end up happening after this troop surge?" he asked almost absentmindedly, trying to force himself to be involved in the conversation.

Thresha hummed as she considered the prospects, but Tammie spoke more quickly than her. "I expect the extermination campaign to strike at full force first, then cleanup stray hives and mounds later." In a flash, her tone had become thoughtful once more, not a hint of manic behavior on her at all as she transitioned from silly to serious flawlessly.

"We still don't know where the infestation began exactly, or if there are multiple smaller sites rather than one larger site," Thresha replied cautiously, reclining back onto her hands but looking rather pensive. "There might need to be more exploratory expeditions before a serious strike is made."

"Exploratory expeditions?" Navarion asked rhetorically.

Thresha tossed a handful of sand his way; she didn't aim for his clothing but registered her displeasure by burying one of his hands. "You know what I mean," she laughed, and then Tammie laughed, and then Navarion laughed without knowing why, finding it easy to finally relax.

"Look, the silithids will be wiped out quickly: we're sure of that much," Tammie stated, straightening up like she were at the beginning of some sort of lecture.

"Right."

"Of course."

"The troop surge might not even be necessary; it's for show. War is about deception-"

"So you'd say we're officially at war?" Thresha interjected, cutting Tammie off.

"Hold on, I'm getting there. War is all about deception; it's about image and bluffing."

"Bluffing to a bunch of insects?" Thresha interjected again.

"No; to the people," Tammie answered confidently. "This is for both the local workers - all of whom came here from other places since the rebuilding only began this year - and the merchants both Kaldorei and foreign. All conflict is about monies and lands."

"Land is a non-count noun," Navarion chimed in, not so much petulantly as just trying to stay in the conversation.

"Listen, shush for a minute," Tammie said in a sincerely polite voice that had Navarion and Thresha both in stitches. "This is about keeping the workers and the traders here. Yes, they want to preserve culture, rebuild a historic city, protect their citizens and so forth, but this is mainly about business, like most conflicts."

"So you think Commander Lamia is bluffing to the common populace here in the city?" Thresha asked almost rhetorically. The tone of her voice insinuated that she already knew the answer.

"Yes, but for a good reason. The troop surge is going to keep the highways even safer and speed up the inevitable fall of these bugs."

The three of them were so engrossed in the short discussion that they hadn't even seen Soraya approaching.

"Attention," sounded off the captain's voice, and despite being off duty all three soldiers jumped to their feet and/or hooves. Tammie wavered in the sand and both Navarion and Thresha grabbed her by the arms to keep her steady. "Watch yourself, vindicator," Soraya droned in her sentinel voice, but she smirked, showing her amusement to the three of them but concealing it from the three women behind her. "Alright, you're each going to be in charge of showing your new comrades around the military quarter as well as the patrol routes tonight. Until they adjust to their new surroundings, you'll also be their first point of contact for any questions they may have. Hearthglen?"

"Yes ma'am?" Navarion asked, stepping forward.

"This is Maya Ironwood II. I believe your families might be acquainted," Soraya said, leaving Navarion's jaw to practically drop to the ground.

"How...captain, how did you know that?"

The sentinel named Maya, however - who was well known to Navarion through stories even though his mother had never actually met her - seemed confused. "I don't recall meeting someone by the family name of Hearthglen before," she murmured cautiously as if a bit intimidated by Soraya.

"The women of your mother's ancestral grove have spread far and wide, Hearthglen," Soraya explained, smirking again as if she held some great big secret. "I know of both your and Private Ironwood's roots because I once served alongside a certain dragoon by the name of Nightshade."

"Tirith..." Navarion murmured himself, in awe rather than in intimidation.

"That's right. You'll be pleasantly surprised to learn who the Marshall of the Sentinel Army's forward division is, too," Soraya added ominously, smiling in a way that showed she wouldn't tell him exactly who it was. The taunting was actually a breath of fresh air from the stern captain, though her lack of formality made the three newcomers visibly uncomfortable. "Show Ironwood to her quarters and make sure she knows the patrol routes through the inner city woodland as well as within the western city wall."

"Yes ma'am," he responded, picking up Maya's foot locker for her not out of chivalry - which didn't exist in a matriarchal society - so much as out of respect for a weary ally.

"So how does your mother know my family, exactly?" Maya asked as they left the naval yard for the military quarter.

"So your mother lived alongside her grandmother for the entire Long Vigil?" Astariel asked in awe as they strolled through a residential district to a less well known bistro frequented only by locals in the neighborhood.

Weaving in and out of the midnight crowd, Navarion tried his best to avoid stepping on yet another gaggle of gnomes trying to hawk their clocks and music boxes to a race who preferred to mark time by watching the movement of the moon across the sky and who all knew how to play at least two instruments of their own.

"Yes; her grandma was the head of the military branch of government at Serenity," he replied while narrowly missing a low tree branch jutting out from one of the tree houses on the street. "But my mother went by her birth name back then, which is why Maya II here didn't realize that my mother served under Maya I."

"I was actually wondering about that...Hearthglen isn't an elven name."

"No, it isn't, but the story is a little too long to tell here," he chuckled as they continued to search for their destination. "It would be better to wait until we can sit down. Plus, the others would hear the story so I won't have to tell it multiple times."

Looking straight ahead, Astariel smiled as if reveling in a memory of great meals past. "You're going to love this place by the way. Their pastries are made from ground acorn meal, not wheat like what you get from the other races. Even the ingredients they bake inside are authentic Kaldorei - the meat, for example, is either venison or quail. None of that beef or chicken you find south of our country." She grimaced for a second as if lamenting in a memory of not so great meals past. "Or pork. I seriously don't understand why orcs love that stuff so much."

"Sounds like a great and authentic way to blow the paychecks we just got yesterday." Out of the corner of his eye, Navarion watched her staring straight ahead and tried to see how she'd react to a question that was completely normal in many parts of the world. "How much did you receive this week?" he asked innocently.

Frowning and arching her kong eyebrows up, she made him laugh a little by her offended reaction. "Navarion, sometimes I'm worried that you're too influenced by the outlanders," she said in a grave, concerned tone.

"That probably means that you make more than me," he beamed just a little bit too much. "I didn't mean to offend you by the way, I was just testing the waters."

"All the same, you shouldn't allow the outside world to corrupt you," she replied, not seeing the irony or ethnocentrism in her own words. "And of course I make more than you, I'm a woman."

For a few moments, he stayed silent, not offending in the least but certainly thoughtful. In a world where most races treated women rather poorly, the Kaldorei could be called an anamoly. Never having been the victim of bias, he almost didn't have the sense to feel upset by it so much as he just found it an interesting cultural study.

"You know, in many cultures - maybe most here on Azeroth - it's the other way around. Women don't have the opportunities men do."

"Those are completely backward gender relations," she huffed in disbelief despite certainly being aware of how the rest of the world functioned.

"Would the ideal be something in the middle, then?" he suggested. "Like a system where there was equal pay for equal work?"

Forgetting that they were technically lost in the crowded neighborhood, Astariel just waved her hand in the air in front of her as she dismissed the comment. "No, that isn't fair at all," she answered in absolute certainty. "Women are the leaders. We take life to defend our land and we give life by bearing the next generation of women. A man's job is primarily to impregnate his wife so she can bear daughters."

Truly Navarion wasn't offended - to each their own, he always thought - but her attitude was just so different for him. Among the goblin barons in Ratchet, he had grown accustomed to hearing his sisters and female friends complain of unfair treatment in the professional world. But here, it seemed to be the opposite - Astariel was literally claiming that one gender deserved higher pay than the other by virtue of having been born that gender. He didn't quite know what to make of it.

"What if his wife bears sons?"

"Then they can grow up and sire more daughters," she replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Ah," was his only reply.

Even though she had seemed so sure of herself when answering, he didn't even need to use voodoo to sense that she had tensed up a bit at his questioning. Neither of them said a word as they tried to figure out where they were and how many turns they had taken; not only were the roads narrow and full of both workers and locals just chatting, but the higher levels of the forest city were also abuzz with excitement over the recent troop surge and the return of foreign merchants to New Nendis. At least three more levels up, a series of vine bridges and long branches connecting from one treehouse to a separate treehouse connected all the various floors as they did in the rest of the city, but the fact that the trees were to close together in this part of the city made things feel even more cramped and noisy. It was just about the only district where one could truly get lost.

Off to the side, the gleam of sapphire twinkled in both of their eyes due to the movement of a few people. Apparently, some people had set up a small silk tent only spacious enough to accommodate a few chairs. Somebody stood beind a table covered in papers that Navarion would have ignored otherwise, but Astariel's increased tension and slowed pace caused him to look.

Standing and bidding a group of visitors farewell, a demure night elf female wore the robes of a priestess. Except they weren't the cloths of a priestess of the moon or a member of the Sisterhood of Elune; those were very distinct and easily recognizable. Rather, this woman wore the attire of the priests of the holy Light, the religious faith of humans, dwarves and draenei. Obviously a convert herself given the foreign nature of the religion, the papers on the table were pamphlets translated into Darnassian like the copies she'd given to the people walking away from the table.

By the time Navarion had realized that the tent had been set up by missionaries, Astariel had already walked past him silently to inspect the table. Gulping, he followed her, knowing he may very well have to break up a polemical debate.

"Good night," chirped the priestess of the...well, sun, Navarion guessed, using the common form of hello for night elves. "Are you interested in borrowing any of our literature?" She was clearly a pureblooded night elf, but her accent in Darnassian was discernible enough to tell that Common was her native language, just like it was his.

Immediately, he could guess a number of things about her. Obviously she had been born after immortality, was likely Astariel's age and had grown up in the Eastern Kingdoms. Whether her parents had converted to Light worship or she had simply been raised that way he couldn't tell, but her more forward body language and excessive (by elven standards) hand movement signaled that she had been raised with human culture rather than Kaldorei traditions. He'd seen that before; the humans were relentless in pushing their religious beliefs onto others, much more so than the dwarves or draenei, but they also knew that different races responded more positively to missionaries of their own people. Navarion had never heard of a night elf born during immortality converting to another religion, leaving only those who had been born or grown up among humans as potential token Kaldorei for Light missions around the world. Such efforts were largely in vain, as those token Kaldorei usually knew very little of their own roots, chief among those roots the tendency of Kaldorei to react extremely negatively to members of their own race losing touch with a culture that had existed for longer than the combined existence of humans and dwarves anyway. The subtle but still visible Alliance insignia on the inside tent flap revealed that she was one of the few who had chosen to remain a member of that faction when the night elves left it years ago, and thus was legally as much an outlander as the gnomish merchants waddling around them.

All that, he could tell from the first few seconds when she spoke and when he looked over her outfit and tent. Unfortunately, he didn't have enough time to pull Astariel away before she began to drill the oblivious Un'goro passion fruit (purple on the outside, pink on the inside).

"Goddess light your path," Astariel replied right at the beginning, throwing the proverbial gauntlet down and making her loyalties known. "Do you have a license to be soliciting?"

Across the young missionary's face spread a mixture of irritation, defiance, apprehension and just a little bit of fear as she forced herself to smile and keep her hands folded in front of her stomach pleasantly. "My friend, we are not soliciting for anything here at our mission. We only seek-"

"You're selling out your roots, apparently," Astariel snapped back. The hustle and bustle of the crowded street made it such that nobody passing by could overhear the conversation, saving Navarion at least a little bit of anxiety.

"I think I can see the bistro from here," he said while leaning close to Astariel's twitching ears.

Upper lip stiffened, the missionary tried to appear stalwart for a moment. "Don't worry, friend, I forgive you for your slander without you even needing to ask-"

"Tell me, have you ever actually read any of the scripture of the Sisterhood?" Astariel interrupted, not hiding her scorn as her facial expressions became uncharacteristically fluid. "Do you even know about the faith that you're rejecting? Or is your Darnassian really that poor?"

Tension mounting not at the thought of putting his hands on her physically but at the possibility of a real argument breaking out, Navarion gripped Astariel by the arm and tugged gently. "Okay, I'm pretty sure I see the others waiting for us-"

"The Light can cure all ailments, my friend," the missionary said while stiffening her own posture. She smiled the way people smile when they're angry. "Even bad manners."

"So where was the Light when the Scourge wiped out more than twenty five million of its worshippers in Lordaeron during the Third War, hmm?" Astariel widened her eyes in her own, more open, show of anger. When the missionary gasped, she nodded her head in an acrimonious display that was shocking coming from her. "I thought so. You weep for humans and Sindorei more than you would for our own Kaldorei."

"Hey, Astra, I'm pretty sure Maya is waving to us!" Navarion tried in vain to interject. He then looked to the crestfallen Light missionary, feeling rather sorry for the naive but idealistic young woman - so, so, so much like Astariel herself if the two women only realized it - despite his dislike of proselytizing on the behalf of any religious belief at the expense of another. "If you could excuse us, miss, our friends are waiting-"

"And another thing!" Astariel tried to scold while Navarion simply dragged her away, leaving the missionary to hang a 'back in ten minutes' sign on the table and shut herself in the tent, mostly likely to sulk in ideological defeat.

"Just forget about it, it isn't important," he tried to reassure her while he continued to pull her toward the bistro.

"Do you know why she kept calling me friend?"

"No, I suppose I don't," he sighed reluctantly. "Why?"

"Because she considers anybody who doesn't worship the Light an infidel, even her own fellow night elves."

"That's unfortunate."

"Their churches teach that, by the way! I hope you know that!" she exclaimed while tugging on his arm too to get his attention. "Anybody other than them goes to a lake of fire when they die, according to Light worshippers!"

"I had no idea," he replied, humoring her gross generalization and stereotyping.

"Yeah, they do! She'd call a human or a dwarf her sister, but she won't call me that even if I call her out on it publicly - they consider it a sin to do so and will just smile and act polite up front while cussing you out when they're away from you!"

"Well, it's over now, so there's no need to worry about it."

"From now on I'm calling them Lighties!"

At the last comment, Navarion slowed down a bit before they reached the bistro and anybody who could potentially hear her slur. "Tsk, no, Astra, just let it go."

"I am!"

"Let it go."

"Navarion, you need to work on your friend Zhenya."

Stopping completely just a few yards away from the steps leading up to the porch of the bistro - Maya had begun to joke with Thresha and Calil about something while they waited - Navarion tried to calm his heart rate down and act as if hearing that name didn't still hurt him a little bit. It had been more than a month since they'd 'taken a break' and he'd barely seen her to gauge how much she missed him since.

"Work on?"

"Yes, you need to speed up your efforts to convert her!" At that, he did manage to loosen up slightly if only slightly; if only she knew. "When was the last time you taught her one of the twenty seven precepts of the Sisterhood?"

"Oh...it might have been last week," he lied through his teeth. He hadn't even known there were only twenty three, they seemed like so much.

"Any spot outside of your bunk is your mission field. Why not teach her one right now? Every spare moment is a moment where you can spread the truth."

"Right...now?"

It was only then that he realized that Zhenya was standing only about a dozen yards away from them, speaking to someone across the street in front of another local restaurant. Though she just wore a plain burgundy t shirt along with brown, knee length shorts, he outfit coupled with her more tamed hairstyle made her look more feminine than he remembered seeing her. Her companion, a well dressed draenei wearing so many rings and necklaces that he must have been a jeweler, reached out and cupped the back of her neck with his hand.

Without even looking at his own companion, Navarion led her by the arm in the direction of their three waiting friends and nudged her forward. "You know what, Astra...I think I just might take the opportunity," he mumbled while staring dumbstruck.

"Oh, that's so inspiring!" she beamed while making her way over to the rest of their friends at the bistro. "Goddess light your path!" Another second and the four of them were inside; ostensibly, she was bragging about how she was partially responsible for the coming conversion of another 'Lightie' to the true faith of Elune as none of the others tried to pull him inside.

Mesmerized, numb but just a little bit upset, Navarion leaned against a low, naturally grown fencepost while pretending to people watch the patrons of the opposing restaurant. As subtle as Zhenya could be, a golden flash signaled the slightest of head tilts and he knew that she was looking at him. Her posture was dainty, far too dainty to be the normal her, as she listened to the once again berobed merchant prattle on about something. Nodding to the wealthy looking man and then toward the restaurant, she smiled in a way that could fool anybody but Navarion and nudged her own companion up the steps. He leaned a bit closer, causing aggressive jealousy, accursed testosterone and immature machismo to spike inside of the half troll's system despite the fact that she rotated sideways such that the jeweler's chickenpeck connected with the side of her single intact horn instead of her forehead. He seemed rather pleased with himself as he went inside, disappearing into the crowd.

For a minute or so, both Navarion and Zhenya stood and pretended to look at other things while actually looking at each other. His heart refused to slow down, jumping up into his throat and constricting it, refusing to grant him reprieve from the hundred and one scenarios running across his befuddled mind. Every answer begat more questions than he could even comprehend, and he had to settle for individually counting how many days it had been since the two of them decided to take a break from each other.

Throwing propriety out the window, he crossed the street slowly and leaned against the fencepost right next to the restaurant, showing her that he was waiting for her to talk to him. He had never been one to worry too much about what others thought of him, and would feel no shyness were she to just walk inside and leave him high and dry by himself; at least he tried.

Zhenya folded her hands over her chest and clopped in his direction, pretending to take indredible interest in the texture of the tree bark further up on the trunks. Her neon yellow hair dye had begun to fade and her natural jet black color invaded from the roots, combed demurely behind her one and a half horns. Never had he seen her looking so made up and appearance conscious before. That she had gone to the trouble for the sake of another man made him hate to even look at her.

She leaned against the fencepost as well, facing in the same direction as him while pretending to people watch. For another moment, the two of them stood silently, not challenging the other to speak first but honestly finding nothing to say. Whether or not she was also experiencing the range of confusion he was, he did not know.

Finally, she spoke.

"He's a friend of a friend from Azuremyst," she explained in a voice that hinted at a contriteness he had never, ever heard or expected from her before. "I showed him around town a few days ago since he's selling here." Maybe she could have fooled somebody else. Zhenya was a talented if untrained actress, and she wore her best poker face as she tried very hard to look as if she didn't care, as if she didn't feel bad for him; Lord knows she had truly, sincerely felt that way about many of their fights before. But she could not fool him; not even close. He knew her too well, knew her inside and out, and he knew that for once, she did feel bad for him.

That didn't provide him any comfort, no matter how much he had thought before that empathy from her would have done so. "I see," Navarion replied, unable to fully express how little he wanted to hear about another man. The two of them continued to stand next to each other without looking at each other until he found the power of will to talk some more. "So now you're showing him the restaurants."

Rather than arrogantly shoot back the way she always had before, Zhenya remained quiet a little while longer before answering in a cautious tone as if she were on trial and worried that her words could be used against her. "He asked me out to dinner. Technically, I'm not...reserved," she said euphemistically. "I had no reason to refuse him."

"Technically, I guess you don't. You're free." Navarion didn't flinch, didn't move, barely even breathed as he remained glued to his spot on the fencepost.

In all their many months together, she had always been the one to escalate their fights. The one to become even more defiant if she knew she was wrong. The one to resort to shocking claims of acting out due to past injustices or implying suicidal tendencies if criticized or scolded. The one to absolutely refuse to apologize for anything no matter how wrong she was. She was selfish, self centered and very self assured. So when she turned to him looking apologetic in her expression for the first time since he'd met her, literally the first time, period, he found the exchange too surreal and withdrew.

"Navarion...listen, I-"

"I'm happy for you," he lied through his teeth while leaving the fencepost and stretching his back before returning to the bistro.

Frustration, though not impatience or resentment, peppered her voice. "Wait, just listen," she protested weakly. "It's only one date, he and I aren't asking each other for commitment or anything. Technically, you and I are both single-"

It was all he needed to hear. "I'm happy for you," escaped from his lips as he walked away, leaving her to take a few steps after him, teasing him with an apology she had always withheld when they had been together, back when it actually mattered.

She stopped after a few steps, realizing they were in public and moving back to the fencepost. He could feel her eyes upon him, and only wished they would never look at him again. Because at that moment, all he could think of was eating pastries with his friends until he vomited, drinking himself to sleep and swearing off women for life.


	14. Mind Games

"Here, try this one!" Astariel chirped in an almost song like manner while holding the morsel out to him. She was far better than he at using chopsticks, but had worked hard to train him on how to feed himself old Kaldorei style.

Fumbling for a few moments, he eventually gained his bearings and clasped the nearly translucent piece of meat. Lower stick resting on top of the thumb knuckle; upper stick pinched between the tips of the index finger and thumb. Simple steps. "What is it?" he asked curiously, eyeing the big grin on her face through the piece of meat.

Mischevious as ever, she reveled in Navarion's apprehension for a moment and withheld an immediate answer. He could tell that she enjoyed his reactions to the food even more than the food itself; it was no wonder she's practically begged him to come there with her.

"Try it," she practically taunted, her lip twitching as if she were trying to hide her smile. If so, she failed miserably.

Another patron walked by so quickly that her dress almost brushed some of their napkins off the table. Surely it would have been a fire hazard to allow more than twenty people inside the cramped excuse for a restaurant all at once; and on that night, there must have been at least a hundred. From the outside, the place had the design of a very small huntress lodge, and on the inside it appeared to be even smaller. For elves, the other patrons did create a bit of noise, but the fact that there was so much activity around them made time almost stand still. All that existed was the periwinkle elf sitting in front of him at the table, daring him to venture out into the unknown.

Taking the plunge, he shoveled the morsel into his mouth as best he could, poking himself just a little bit too hard in the tongue as his chopsticks proved ever difficult to handle. She was practically giddy as he felt the consistency of the meat via the insides of his cheeks. It quivered, even more rubbery than kalamari in a way he found disconcerting. There was absolutely no taste to it at all; pure water had a stronger flavor. So engrossed did she become that she actually mimicked his chewing without even realizing it, refraining from eating her own food while she watched.

Rubbery didn't explain the half of it. The meat was so chewy that it squished in between his teeth, proving nearly impossible to actually pulverize or even cut. Sort of like a mouth workout, he truly had to persevere just to get the meat to the point where it was digestible. Such a laborious task, all for a piece of food lacking in flavor.

Only when he finished eating it did she finally pipe up. "It was cuttlefish!" she burst out and then promptly swallowed some of her own.

"So it's sort of like-"

"Nm-mm," she shushed him while covering her mouth quickly. A single chopstick held up in the air signaled that she needed him to wait.

Her dimples truly showed when she chewed so fast, working much harder than he had but also pushing the cuttlefish meat around using her tongue to work it over in much less time. Devoted and focused, she almost seemed to lose track of him there despite the cramped space in the restaurant, the small size of their table and the fact that they both had to hunch over toward each other to avoid bumping into other patrons. At such a short distance, he could see the barely visible, perfectly clean periwinkle pores on the skin of her face. Like the women in his family, Astariel didn't wear any makeup, ever; not even foundation. Indeed, most night elven women hadn't for the longest time considering the fact that they had formed a society almost entirely of women, but even when the men woke back up few of them had the habit. Rather, it was the younger generation born after the factional wars where a handful of particularly gaudy, flashy Kaldorei female's had taken up the habit of painting their faces. Members of the older generations such as his mother reacted in disgust, finding it difficult to accept any sort of body art other than the permanent facial tattoos the women earned per their coming of age rituals, the occasional body tattoos and modest ear piercings. Makeup, however, was a big no-no for many and a fun way to break taboos for others.

Not for Navarion, though. He wondered what Astariel would look like with makeup...probably not quite as beautiful as she did right there...

Stop that, he thought to himself. Had he really become so lonely that he was checking out his friends?

Licking her lips as she finished the rest of the cuttlefish, she smiled almost triumphantly, as if she had won some sort of a contest. Her demeanor was pleasant and her attitude positive; refusing to let his mind wander, Navarion just tried to relax and enjoy the first day off they'd both had on the same day in quite a long time.

"So it's kind of like kalamari, isn't it?" he asked her again.

Inspecting his chili crab as if she wanted it, she restrained herself and looked at him only half attentively. "Hmm...uh...what? No, it isn't like kalamari at all," she mumbled, her little nose wiggling at the scent of the chili. "It's totally different."

"If you say so." Using his chopsticks like prying utensils, he opened up his chili crab and let the top of its shell flip open.

Steam had been trapped inside and quickly flowed out, sending the spicy aroma wafting up into the air. Both of their noses twitched and he was sure her mouth was watering just like his was. Thankful for the idea to go there and for the company, he nudged the plate forward toward the modal of the table so they could both share. He didn't even need to explain, and she immediately began tearing off chunks from the meat inside the shell effortlessly as if she'd been using chopsticks since they day she'd been born.

If there had been any residual congestion in his nose from previous days of sorrow, the chili that the crab had been doused, filled, marinated and bathed in cleared it out. His tongue, cheeks, gums, nostrils, throat and even eyes burned in a way he had thought only possible when eating food of the jungle trolls; night elf food was generally considered a bit bland due to the spartan diets developed by a forest dwelling culture on the move, but at this restaurant at least, the cuisine of his mother's people proved just as formidable as that of his father's.

Nose almost running, Astariel tried to continue the conversation in between pants and deep breaths. "Wasn't this...ah! A good idea?"

To avoid opening up their containers of yogurt too early, Navarion tried to force himself to switch between looking at her and the chili crab instead of the containers. Her cheeks almost flushed due to the level of spiciness in the crab meat, along with her forehead and neck too. It only proved to be yet another distraction, though the thoughts brought to him by the sight quickly made him switch his focus back onto the yogurt.

"We can just take a bite or two to douse the proverbial flames," he suggested while giving her her container of plain yogurt and opening his own.

Snatching hers and opening it immediately, she shoveled more than a bite or two of the yogurt into her mouth, inexplicably also managing to use the chopsticks. "Sounds good! In fact, watch this!" She then promptly scooped up some more of her yogurt on top of her chopsticks and plopped it down into the open shell of the chili crab and spread it across the top of the crabmeat.

He raised an eyebrow in polite suspicion. "What are you doing?" he asked while pulling a clump of sticky rice from a small bowl and mixed it into his yogurt.

"I got this!" she chirped once more while chopping up the meat and mixing it around with the yogurt inside the crab shell. When she finished twirling the oily spices and the thick yogurt together the best she could, she pointed to the crabmeat to indicate it was ready and began to eat more herself.

This meal was the most adventurous he'd eaten in perhaps a year or more; he'd ventured out into the unknown and saw no reason to pull back at that point. Poking blindly through the mess of red chili paste and white plain yogurt, he managed to snag himself a bit of crabmeat and pinched it securely before lifting it toward his mouth.

The taste was incredibl, and the too of them groaned together at their small table. Nobody in the restaurant heard or cared, but they both looked at each other and laughed anyway. Intense spices mixed around across his taste buds and were quickly doused by the thick yogurt, which removed the sting just as effectively as any other dairy product. Which, as he remembered, were rather rare in northern Kalimdor and must have been imported. Then again, chili didn't grow in that region at all, so the entire dish was basically foreign despite being a mainstay of the northeastern coast of the continent.

The explosion of flavor in his mouth blasted away all such thoughts, however. The two of them went mad with it, intoxicated by the rapidly fluctuating taste. They devoured the entire chili crab and what little yogurt, rice and wasabi remained. Cups of green tea that were far too small helped to digest all the food a little bit faster but left them both feeling like beached whales regardless. It followed naturally that they'd need to walk off the meal for a little while, which is how they found themselves back out onto the street and ambling past the numerous multi-story tree houses and local shops.

Of all the quirks that Astariel had about her, perhaps the most interesting was the fact that she was basically an armchair historian on Nendis, both the old and the new city. She practically talked his ears off about the place as they slowly sauntered around corners and through more narrow paths that almost became alleyways between the densely packed tree trunks. As he was to find out, her parents had dwelled in the ancient city even before the Sundering, and her mother had managed to remained stationed there for the entirety of the Long Vigil; the barrow den where her father had slept during the Emerald Dream wasn't too far away. She rarely mentioned the city's unfortunate destruction by the Betrayer, focusing instead on the popular demand for it to be rebuilt once the night elves had dropped out of the Alliance. Despite the fact that it had been less than a year since the city had been regrown, she seemed to know every nook, cranny and little corner store around, and could point out what had been grown in the same place and what was different from the old city plan. She also tended to stereotype people into those descended from the original inhabitants of Nendis and those who simply moved to the regrown city for the sake of economic opportunity. Indeed, she truly was an expert on her ancestral city.

By the time they'd walked over toward the treehouse apartment where she lived alone, she must have retold to him the entire sixteen thousand year history of the one time hamlet which turned into a Neolithic village which turned into a ziggurat city which turned into a grand highborne metropolis which lived on as one of the few stone cities of the Kaldorei after they put their faith in Elune. Much like Suramar, the home town of Navarion's mother, Nendis had seen pretty much every epoch of mortal development on Azeroth before the modern era, but unlike Suramar had survived the Sundering to see the modern era.

It had come so close to the morning time that there wasn't anybody else on the narrow, isolated street. Small specs of light drifted down from the canopy high above; not so much that Navarion's silver eyes had difficulty seeing the various apartments for bachelorettes grown into the actual structure of the tall trees, going five stories up. A typical winding ramp led the way around like a curvy tower, but Astariel continued to lean against the tree and chat quietly, not yet seeming ready to retire to her quarters. Unlike the other mercenaries and even many of the enlisted soldiers, she actually had property in the city due to her historic roots, and didn't have to sleep inside an ancient of war like the others.

"So all I had to do was provide proof of my descent from Old Nendis, and the housing office automatically reserved a spot for me based on need," she explained while patting the tree she lived in affectionately. "So families would possibly get two consecutive floors to themselves, while singles like me only get half of a floor. It's all based on need, not on money or prestige, just like things should be."

Not drowsy so much as ready to retire from all the talking they'd done, he leaned against the tree as well. "Do you reckon some people got into sham marriages so they would be eligible for better housing? They had that problem at some work camps for the Steamwheedle Cartel, way back in the day."

Shocked, she crooked her head back in disbelief. "No, by the Goddess," she chortled, finding the mere suggestion amusing. "These are night elves we're talking about. Marriage is a sacred bond, between a woman and a man. It's more important than defrauding the authorities Elune willed to be over us for the sake of material gain."

Her nearly long winded mini-monologue took him aback. Despite knowing she was religious - just a little bit fundamentalist, even - it was the clearest example of her dogmatic beliefs yet. Astariel was sincere, kind, caring but naive and also idealistic. It was endearing but also a bit funny at the same time.

"That's certainly a wholesome view to take," he replied, trying not to let his cynicism show through.

"It's not just a view - it's the truth," she countered, lowering her voice a tad bit more. Her gaze was unassuming as she looked up at him but the spirits told him there was something more. "Whenever the Goddess wills that I bear children, I will; if She hasn't decreed that for me yet, then there is nothing I can do. My only option is the same as everyone else's; to wait patiently until the right man comes along so I may finally settle down."

In a flash, the feeling of pressure returned to him. It had been many weeks since his last close encounter with her alone, and also many weeks since his discussion about the matter with Zorena, but the tauren's advice stuck with him. Astariel was building him up into being some sort of shining, ethical hero that he knew he was very far from being. To make matters worse, he simply couldn't see a relationship with Astariel being possible even though he had more than a suspicion that she wanted just that. She was a wonderful person; moral, religious, and lacking in experience with vices. As much as he did like spending time with her, he could never shake the nagging feeling that the presence of somebody like him in her life served only as a source of potential corruption of someone so pure. They were not each other's type even if they wanted to be.

At least shaking away the pressure, he sought a means to put a sufficient amount of space between them. The growing sense of attachment increased the guilt he felt for not having the courage to tell her he just wanted to be friends. Every opportunity he sought seemed an inappropriate time, and every way he thought of wording it sounded too cruel - especially when she only hinted and never just outright told him how he knew she felt. Subtlety would be the only way.

"Everybody finds the right person for themselves eventually," he began cautiously, mindful of how much physical space lied between them. "Once this campaign is over...and the rest of us move on and move away, I'm sure you'll find some strapping night elf man who knows Nendis as well as you do."

For a moment, they both fell silent. She inspected him and he her, and he cheated by listening to the spirits around the area. His voodoo never told him exactly how another person felt, but it did give him a general idea, especially regarding honesty. Right there, he could sense the mixture of emotion inside of her; it wasn't intense, but there was a mild conflict. For sure she understood the fact that he was trying to send some sort of a message, yet there was a persistence within her that couldn't be dominated or subdued; it was as beautifully admirable as it was a hindrance to what he was trying to do.

Her slight smile never left her relatively full lips for an elf, and the mixed body language of defensiveness and receptiveness never left her full figure. One thing he didn't truly know what whether or not she grasped his desire to only be friends, or if she thought he was playing some sort of a game. A part of him knew he should have just told her it wasn't a game, yet another part felt cruel to do so in a direct way; he loathed to hurt her feelings. And still another part of him asked why he was so concerned about preserving her feelings if he told himself that he didn't want to be with her or someone of her type. Questions bounced back and forth inside his head until she spoke.

"The future is a mystery to us mortals...it makes such long term plans impractical, but it also makes the natural progression of fate much more magical." Wistfullness and fancy crept into her voice, even pricking up the corner of her upper lip ever so slightly, and he worried that his efforts at creating space had been for naught.

A rooster actually announced the approach of dawn; a rare occurrence in a Kaldorei city and most assuredly brought by outlanders living as expatriates in New Nendis. Both of their nocturnal minds and bodies needed sleep soon, and they both knew it was time to retire. He forced himself to stop leaning against the tree and stand up straight, folding his arms over his chest even though it wasn't particularly chilly.

"We need to sleep, and I have a bit of a walk back to the barracks," he sighed, resigned to comprehending his personal life and feelings after a good day's rest.

Mimicking his movements like a trained actress, she stood up straight as well, shifting in perfect subconscious, unintentional lockstep. "Yes...I guess we do..." Her voice trailed off, and despite the nervousness he could sense within her she controlled herself surprisingly well.

Stress took ahold of the muscles in Navarion's jaw and the back of the neck. He and Astariel didn't see each other that often - certainly less often than he saw Tammie or even Thresha - and yet he knew that Astariel couldn't be compared to those two in terms of how he related to them. Guilt reverberated inside his mind as he looked back and tried to find instances where he could have, should have made it clear to her that he viewed her as a dear friend, just as he viewed his fellow squad member or the vindicator also serving as a mercenary. But none of that served any purpose at that moment. There he was, standing in front of a person who he found stunning to look at and wonderful to be around, but who wasn't his type, nor was he hers - even if she was too naive to realize that, to realize what kind of man he really was.

A thud echoed from inside an apartment a few trees down, likely a person hitting the bed just a little too hard for the day. Empty and silent, the neighborhood felt like even it was pushing Navarion toward something he didn't want, toward decisions he didn't want to make, toward words he didn't want to say and things he didn't want to do. Hopeful eyes looked up at him, visible to the shadow hunter even when hidden behind a veil of caution and shyness. He was too concerned for her feelings to tell her the truth, too selfish and attached to their friendship to cut off from her the way he'd advised Calil to do with Thresha, and too lost to make a proper decision.

No longer content to wait for him, Astariel leaned forward, confirming that she'd seen their dinner away from their main group of friends as a little more than two friends unwinding on a night off from work. If he pulled back, she'd feel rejected, which was the last thing in the world he wanted her to feel; if he leaned in, she might try to kiss him, and judging by his experience with inexperienced women in the past, that would lead her to believe they were not only together but both completely infatuated with one another. Panic forced him to rotate away in the same manner he'd seen someone who shall remain unnamed do, avoiding the perilous display of true feelings. Astariel certainly wasn't short by night elf standards, but Navarion was tall enough that when she leaned and he rotated, their collision ended up being an awkward, one armed hug instead. That awkwardness allowed him to excuse himself without truly showing her how he felt or making any sort of decision at all, once again running away from feelings that had become a trying task for him.

"Ow!" she chortled when her face bumped into his chest at a strange angle, causing her neck to crook back.

"Sorry, sorry," he laughed right back, relieved that she had been fooled. To top it all off, he pretended to be so drowsy that one of his feet slipped off the wooden ramp they'd been standing on, setting him just a little bit further away from her.

"Alright, you need to get back to your bunk before your blurt yourself, mister." She rubbed her little nose even though he hadn't bumped into her hard, making a comical show of it.

In an attempt to both show a sort of reconciliatory affection while also ending the tense (from his end) exchange as fast as he could, he placed one hand on the back of her shoulder to help her get started up the ramp. Her skin was soft, even through the fabric of her cloak and silk shirt, and warmer to the touch than most elves. Darkness crept into his mind as he battled the voice telling him to give her shoulder a small squeeze, just enough to let her feel the strength of his grip...slide a finger along toward her neck...

STOP, he growled to himself internally. That part of him was dead and buried.

Thankfully, she accepted the gentle nudge and started her way up the wooden ramp winding around the tree trunk, saving him from the tingling in his own fingertips. "Be sure not to trip over any grass sprites or dryad children on your way back to the military quarter," she joked pleasantly on her way up. The look she shot him over the shoulder had obviously been rehearsed, and even her hair - her bangs were just a bit too long to really be called bangs - fell strategically over one side of her perfectly symmetrical face that she always claimed was totally asymmetrical.

Struck once more by a pang of guilt over unintentionally stringing her along, he forced a smile as he watched her disappear behind the tree trunk.

And then again as she reappeared while ascending the spiraling ramp whole holding the same rehearsed look, this time in an attempt to make him laugh as she finally disappeared behind the trunk a second time and entered the cavernous, hollowed out treehouse.

Not wanting to linger, he turned and began the modest walk back to the barracks, hands in pockets and eyes to the ground. Although he didn't know exactly how to get home - New Nendis was much larger than anybody had expected, even based on the layout of the city walls - he didn't really mind. If anything, a long walk alone was just what he needed to sort out the thoughts in his head.

The residential district was a little bit crowded. The foot paths were paved by more of the naturally risen moon stones but since there were few shops other than general stores, the walkways only had to be wide enough to accommodate a few people. Rather than building out, the Kaldorei tended to build up, and the gigantic tree houses had tenants living inside the hollowed out parts several stories high like any upscale apartment building in Stormwind. Perfectly balanced and grown under the direction of the priestesses and Druids, the tree houses were surprisingly close together, and the spaces in between were filled by naturally grown fences and tool sheds or whatever belongings the denizens didn't have space for inside. Aside from the fact that people lived inside of trees, it wasn't that different from any city in any other part of the world during the hours when everybody was asleep.

Enraptured by the natural beauty and numb from uncertainty over his personal life, Navarion didn't even notice the presence of somebody following him until he had left the residential district and entered one of the cities many patches of green and purple woodlands. The canopy hung much lower and the tree trunks were much narrower since nothing lived there except for wisps and other usual inhabitants of the enchanted Kaldorei forests. The even narrower, winding paths brought him out of view of anybody who may have still been awake at that hour, and that made it easier to sense the presence nearby.

Just around the bend, a lone figure waited for him, apparently having expected him to pass through. All alone in the inner city woods, she wore a simple, light brown, knee-length dress and held a bottle in her hands. The two hooves and one and a half horns informed him of who it was before he even drew close enough to make out the details of the sneer on her face, and he could already feel the knife stabbing at his chest in an attempt to get to his heart.

He paused, surprised by his own lack of response or any inkling at all of how to react. Zhenya just stood there, waiting for him to continue walking until they came face to face. Her attire was far more feminine than what felt like her natural style, almost like she was trying to be someone else. It seemed fake. It wasn't her. The bottle, however, matched her just fine and she took another swig when he started walking again.

Suddenly cold for real, he hugged his chest when he found himself before her, the gap having been closed far too quickly for him to formulate a response to things he wasn't even sure she'd say. Looking him up and down, she stayed quiet for a little while longer. She appeared tired as well, but looked good regardless, as she always did in any situation. One hand on her hip and the other gripping the bottle of firewater, her posture already made him feel like she was mocking him and she hadn't even opened her mouth yet.

"Hey...it's been a while," he started, trying to be as polite and non-confrontational as possible.

She continued to look him over, a snide standoffishness radiating around her. It didn't seem normal; Zhenya had always hovered somewhere between passive aggressive and rudely brusque. Never had she been condescending, yet for the first time he felt as if she were looking down on him.

"I suppose you're too good for me now," she slurred.

A short, simple phrase told him much about her condition. Despite the normal control she could exert over her expressions, her voice betrayed a sound of hurt resentment that he felt she didn't deserve to hold on to. An obvious taunt and incitement, he could sense that she wanted him to tell her he was sorry; not for anything in particular given that he had done nothing to be sorry for, but she wanted to hear it. As she always did, no matter what the circumstances. It had been the dynamic that had helped him be the rock of the first relationship he had had in many, many years that maybe could possibly be described as stable. At one time.

Frustratin crept in to the stiffness of her upper lip when he refused to respond, staring at her in kind. Movement inside of her cheek gave away the fact that she was grinding her molar teeth together in anticipation of his belated attempt to ingratiate himself to her.

"Nothing to say?" she asked after a little bit more coherence returned to her speech. "You hide from me for weeks and there's absolutely nothing you want to tell me?"

For a second she raised the front of her hoof up off of the ground as if she wanted to tap it dramatically to demonstrate the fact that she was waiting for his answer. She decided against it, and set it back down but otherwise held still. Drowsy but more lucid now that he felt upset, Navarion tried to gather a lot that he had been repressing for the past few weeks.

He had tried. Loa knows he had tried so hard. After so many bad relationships ruined both through his actions and those of the women he'd been with, he had found somebody he thought he could get along with for at least more than a month. He and Zhenya fought often, intentionally tried to hurt each other's feelings and were never as caring as either of them had the capacity to be. She denied their relationship in public and wouldn't curb her natural selfishness even around him, even when alone. For all his sins and slights against the female species in the past, he felt their relationship in the present had been a fitting recompense; nobody, not even her, would deny that he had put more into the relationship.

But he had a red line. Never had he cheated on her nor had she cheated on him; it had already been years since infidelity had been an element in his life, and he took its absence for granted. Seeing her with somebody else, even casually, left him with a literal, actual case of nausea for days afterwards. Regeneration from his father healed many wounds, but that one still felt fresh on his heart.

"I have nothing to say to you," he forced himself to utter. He couldn't look her in the eye as he did, but her gasp insinuated that it sincerely did hurt her to hear it as much as it hurt him to say it.

When he pushed aside her to continue on his way through the woods, she pressed into him, trying her best to seduce him both by her body and the bottle of firewater in her hand. So much was the confusion and hurt flowing inside of him that she failed to get any sort of rise out of him for the first time in...well, he couldn't even remember how long they'd technically been together anymore. All he knew was that their time had passed, and although it didn't make the pain sting any less he could at least remind himself that he wasn't the one who had finally spoiled things.

Surprised by his rejection, she faltered and failed to even grab him arm strongly enough to tug. Behind him he could hear her hiccup and cough while attempting to protest, perhaps curse at him for leaving her and telling him how much he would regret it. And she would be right; she'd absolutely be right because as much as he hated to admit it, hated himself and his own feelings, he knew that he wouldn't be able to let go of her easily. He shut his eyes tight as he walked away, ignoring the constriction in his throat and praying to the Goddess above that he could escape before Zhenya tried to insult his family, dignity or otherwise provoke him out of her own desperation.

Navarion couldn't have been more surprised when the most self centered person he knew, even more so than himself, called out for him without any defiance or even pretense.

"Wait!" she cried out, clopping after him a few steps.

Frozen, petrified, compelled, he stopped and waited, keeping his eyes shut the whole time. Completely contradicting everything he knew about her, her hoofsteps became uneven, unsteady and unsure. She approached him with caution and he could sense her hesitation as she tried to reach out and rest the palm of her free hand on his tricep. The muscles of his throat and temples clenched at the feeling of her laying her hands on him again, sending him into flashbacks of the night they met while serving in Felwood, the toughest part of the campaign to rebuild and renew ancient Kaldorei land. The weakness of her grip infected him and changed form into a weakness in his knees. He wanted so badly to just walk away and stab himself in the heart now so the wound could heal earlier. Yet even more than that, he wanted this apparent change in her to be real and for things to go back to the way they were again. They weren't perfect, but he wanted their imperfect life more than the uncertainty of being another anonymous mercenary waking up to patrol streets day in and day out, driven away from his loved ones due to some immature wanderlust he couldn't exorcise.

"Please wait," she whispered to him, and he knew that the volume of her voice wasn't intentional on her part.

It was the first time she had ever said please to him for anything. Her attempt to warm his heart singed the iciness of his chest, coming on too fast and too intense after he'd tried so hard in the past few weeks to convince himself that a moment like this would never come. Unable to speak, he kept his eyes closed but leaned into her. Neatly manicured nails gripped his other arm and he noticed she had tossed the bottle of hard liquor away, trying to force herself into his arms. Stiff and in disbelief, he wrapped his arms around her incompletely, teetering on the edge and fighting not to fall.

Whether she was sincere or not, she had the ability to say the right things when she wanted to. Perhaps she didn't realize that herself, perhaps she did and had planned it this way, but his heart overruled his brain when she spoke next.

"I just want you to know...I never let him touch me."

Pain. Physical pain twisted inside of him as some muscle spasmed somewhere at the sound of the sentence he'd told himself he was a stupid fool for ever dreaming of. He fell off the edge entirely and pulled her close to him, reveling in her stroking of his sensitive, immature desire to feel not only wanted but wanted exclusively. She told him nothing else and she didn't need to. All he had needed to hear was what she had already told him, and he was hers. Hunched over and clinging to her almost tightly enough to hurt her, he buried his face into her recently dyed hair, resting his cheek against her one intact horn.

"Why can't you just let me go," a voice that sounded like his asked quietly. "It hurts to be with you...it hurts to be without you. Why can't you just leave me be..."

She held back, refusing to let go even for a second. Strained and stiff as he was, she tucked her head beneath his chin such that he could feel her soft breaths on his chest. She reached up and tried to wrap her arms around his neck, pulling him down to her.

"I'm here for you...you have the power to leave if you want to," she replied quietly, and his nerves were so shot that he couldn't even focus his voodoo to check if she was being sincere. Even if he had been able to, he may not have done so; he was trapped in free fall, wanting to believe whatever she told him. "But I will always be here for you if you want."

They felt each other, breathed with each other, let their hearts pulse together in unison. Maybe she was lying. He knew her well enough to know it was possible, but he didn't care. He tried to shake his head no but he didn't know why, and he felt her thumb slide around the base of his long, elven ears to prevent him from doing so.

"I...I don't know who I am," he confessed without knowing why. A part of him wanted to trust her and another part wanted to run away, yet he rambled on as if her were the one who was drunk. "Being alone forced me to face that. So many years...war after war after war, switching sides and flopping from guild to guild...country to country...I don't know why I wake up in the morning. I can't escape that now." He sank when he hit the surface and melted into her arms, no longer willing to fight. "I don't know what I even want..."

Lightly, ever so lightly, those fingernails slipped from the side of his head up to his scalp. They ran through his mane, dragging across the hide of his head in a way that was intoxicating. Pressing herself into him again, she caught him, and instead of struggling after his fall he let himself sink to the bottom if she was there. Mesmerized by the way her fingers danced across his scalp and down the back of his neck, he acquiesced and resolved to let her win.

She pulled him off the main pathway and in between the trees, hugging onto him the whole time. The physical strain they both shared was too much for them, and they let the river flow over them, content to dwell at the bottom.

"I can be what you want, Navarion," she whispered in his ear.

Tired. So tired. Tired of fighting too many battles, external and internal. Weary from a world that had no place for him unless his life was at risk. Broken by his separation from a family that wanted him to return but didn't understand why he couldn't. Tortured by his own self and nothing else.

He gave in easily once they were out of view. A flash of silver as two eyes spied on them caught his attention if only for a split second, but Zhenya quickly pulled him back to her. Ruminating over his inner demons could wait. As she whispered her apologies to him for the first time, all thought of sincerity and purpose was lost on him and he wished time could hold still, leaving him there in the woods forever.


	15. Deployment

Navarion sat next to Maya II as Thresha explained to the group who would be leaving, who wouldn't and what exactly they could expect. Calil waited as Thresha's side, right across from Dmitri, Tammie and the reformed satyr whose name everybody had long ago given up on remembering. They'd chosen a convenient spot at one of the city's many public gardens - night elves valued green space punctuating urban settings a great deal - to engage in their possibly illegal discussion. It wasn't like Thresha to let insider information slip at all, though it was most assuredly Tammie's influence that had led her to do so.

"So it's going to be me, Calil and Navarion in Captain Soraya's unit alongside that unit with Pontus and Zhenya. Navarion, you might want to tell her about that when you get the chance," Thresha explained to the intently listening group of friends.

"Got it."

"We'll be traveling north along the coast as the silithids have a sizable mound out there. They can't travel through the ocean but somehow, they got there." Thresha turned toward the two draenei and single satyr next, addressing them as a group to avoid admitting that she still hadn't learned the red-furred, horned man's name even after having recognized it on the marching roster. "I saw all of your names on the lists, too; your unit will travel north along the coast," she indicated by pointing to the satyr, "while you guys will be heading into the middle of the peninsula, in the mountains."

"Whatever," the satyr's grumbled.

"What about me?" Maya asked pensively, eager to know what she would be doing on an assignment in a city very far from her new home in New Auberdine.

"There's a treat for you and Navarion," Thresha replied with a grin that caused both of their pairs of ears to prick up. "You'll be accompanying the main strategic war camp in the mountains, close to the command tent of the Marshall of the entire Sentinel Army."

Impressive news, but her previous comment was a bit confusing. "How is that a treat for me if I'll be going with you guys alongside Commander Lamia's expedition at the coastline?" the half elf asked.

"Ah, here's the interesting part," Thresha said, pointing her index finger in the air enthusiastically in a way that made Calil smile. "There was recently a shuffle and the head of the Army was transferred to some kind of ministerial position back at Darnassus. The new Marshall is Silviel."

Navarion's eyes grew wide almost immediately at the news. "Silviel...of Serenity? Oh my Goddess...she's from my ancestral grove! I never visited there before it was shut down and transformed into regular forest again by the balance of nature, but my other talked about it all the time. I remember her stories about Silviel!"

"We all know stories about Silviel," Thresha chuckled, both at his reaction and the fact that the Marshall was so famous. "High ranking government officials are usually from either pre-Third War Hyjal if they're from the older generations, or from major ports and cities if they're from newer generations. It isn't often that somebody from a grove of...what is it, twenty five?"

"Yes, twenty five," Maya confirmed.

"It isn't often that a small town, villager girl grows up to be one of the major women in charge. Silviel got to where she is for a reason."

"Actually, I think even I remember hearing stories about someone with that name," Dmitri chimed in, looking pleasantly surprised as if he remembered a story he'd forgotten a long time ago. "They say she was there at the Battle of Orgrimmar alongside the notables at the time, as well as pretty much every other major world conflict since the Battle of Mount Hyjal."

Feeling wistful and nostalgic for the home town he no longer had a chance to visit, Navarion looked up at the ceiling of the naturally grown gazebo they all sat in and began to sing a common tune about Silviel of Serenity know by young men throughout various taverns, market plazas and travelers' waystations as they all dreamed of the woman who was supposedly the strongest and most beautiful on Azeroth.

"From the halls of the Black Temple to the shores of Dragonblight..."

"Alright, we've all heard the song," Thresha laughed. "Anyway, Marshall Silviel will give a surprise speech in just a few days, so you all keep this to yourselves. Once she makes her surprise appearance, goes on a short tour of the ramparts and the ancients of war, she'll sleep outside the city walls and we'll all march the next day."

"Sleeping outside of the walls signifies that it's time for war, yes?" Tammie asked.

"That's right. It's an ancient Kaldorei tradition when preparing for larger campaigns. This one isn't major, but I think it's all for show - they don't want rebuilding efforts to be spoiled by having outlanders scared away."

"Ironic that so many night elves cheered at the expulsion of the outlanders, yet now they want them back for commerce," piped up the raspy voiced satyr. It was the most he'd ever said in front of anybody, ever, and the entire group waited in anticipation to see if he would say any more. When he didn't, they all fell silent until Maya spoke.

"I wish we could talk to the Marshall for a while, just to get to know somebody who actually lived in Serenity," she announced aloud though mostly directed toward Navarion. "I was born right when immortality ended. I had a good few decades where I could have visited it before it was reabsorbed into nature. It's always nice to meet other children and grandchildren of the originals, but it doesn't compare to meeting those who lived it."

"Trust me, I know. That's a big part of why I joined these campaigns - I remember when I first got news that Serenity had been abandoned. We hid the news from my mom for a long time for fear of upsetting her," he sighed, relaxing back onto his cushion in one of the corners.

"Was she upset?" Tammie asked bluntly, earning a disapproving remark from Dmitri in their language.

"It's alright, I'd don't mind," Navarion told Dmitri. "Of course she was upset. She took the news well initially but then she stayed in bed for days. And so my dad stayed with her in bed for days. And then our godmother freaked out because she was worried our mom would get depressed and some of our contacts at the Sentinel consulate in Ratchet kept filling out house with visitors and well wishers...it was a big deal at the time."

"My grandma and her husband...well, I guess my step grandpa, had already passed on when the news came," Maya chimed in, looking rather depressed herself. Her navy blue ponytail made her the spitting image of Serenity's former military commander, also named Maya. "In a way, I'm glad they did. I never got to see her that much until the last few years of her life when she and step grandpa lived with us. I don't think I could bear to have seen her receive news like that."

Not allowing an uncomfortable silence to settle in over the group, Tammie jumped in again with the questions. "And you heard all this from Captain Soraya yesterday?" she asked Thresha. "You're sure this is official?"

"About as official as it gets; she was pretty insistent that I not mention anything. And she made me wash her feet and back as well. We were at the public bathhouse when she was telling me this. She's generally pretty fair as a captain, so she wouldn't make me do something normally reserved for service workers unless she felt like I was actually obligated."

"She...wait, what?" Dmitri asked in confusion.

"It's a night elf female thing," Navarion murmured to the confused draenei. "A holdover from the Long Vigil. The sort of servile behavior reinforces obligations and two-way relationships, and let's both individuals reestablish subjective positions on the totem pole in vis a vis each other."

"Ah."

"So all we have to do for now is wait for the Marshall's speech and then roll out?" Tammie asked, never tiring of asking questions.

"That seems to be the case. We can just watch and wait, and keep this news secret as well." Thresha reclined backwards on her own cushion so much that the back of her right shoulder rested against the from of Calil's left shoulder. She barely noticed herself but Navarion saw poor Calil sweating bullets and tightening up, and it was difficult not to snicker a bit at the smitten young man's plight. "I'm looking forward to the Marshall's speech. I beg it's going to be awesome."

"Did you guys hear the Marshall's speech? It was awesome!" Thresha said to another unit of youngish night elves, all of them regular enlisted sentinels, in line next to them at the supply caravan outside the main city gates.

A few of the eager young women nodded, concurring about the rousing pep talk to a crowd of several hundred soldiers that had them all bouncing on their toes in delight. Marshall Silviel had been a big hit among the locals and visitors alike, and as the Sentinels had predicted there was an influx in forward requests by carrier pigeon and regular mail for foreign merchants seeking to rent space at the city's inns and even outdoor camping areas to resume their business. Even there at the preparations to leave, a large number of civilians had come outside the city gates that late afternoon to bid the top military brass farewell. As a safety measure, those soldiers who would stay behind at New Nendis to protect the city in the absence of the majority of troops had to set up makeshift, moveable barriers to hold all the waving city dwellers back from the military supply train as they prepared.

Among those staying behind, a thistle colored ponytail caught Navarion's eye. It had been a while since he had last spoken to Astariel, which was normal considering the conflicting schedules all patrol people had. This time felt different, however; even after mending his bond with Zhenya and having his relationship return to its normal tumultuous state, he missed the cheery archer a bit more this time. He noticed her looking back at him a few times as well, though she was so busy holding civilians back that she had little time to exchange glances.

Not that Navarion had things any easier. Soraya had enough pull with Commander Lamia to negotiate a spot for their unit toward the front; after hearing that Navarion's mother had not only lived in Marshal Silviel's home village but had also mentored the relatively young official, Soraya saw a chance for herself. And possibly for him, too, though there was no doubt that ambition was the first thing on Soraya's mind. To even spend a few minutes next to such a high ranking official was a dream for many lower ranking officers such as Soraya; name and facial tattoo recognition mattered a great deal for their kind and a simple chance meeting meant a lot to the usually taciturn captain. In spite of her occasional rough treatment of him, Navarion felt warmed by the hopeful look in Soraya's eyes as if she were one of his sisters. It was strange considering the fact that Soraya was much older than him, but warming nonetheless.

Off in the distance, Navarion could make out the Marshall's entourage by the two glaive throwers on either side. Rather than sabres, her wagon was pulled by two kodos imported from the Stonetalon Mountains, turning her wheeled tent into a sort of mobile command center. The march would be long and hard, but such a sight was sure to boost morale immensely. A bright, neon green Mohawk signified Ragnar, Commander Lamia's dark troll bodyguard who shouldered the bone club much like Navarion's father Khujand did in the past. The Commander herself stood in front of the big man, chatting with a few other officers in a surprisingly casual way. In the middle of them all was another sentinel, not particularly ostentatious but noticeable and elegant yet strong. Her cyan skin complexion wasn't so out of the ordinary, but her hair grabbed the attention of every single man and a large number of the women in the area as well. Ultramarine was the name for her hair color, as Navarion had learned from his godmother Irien once while selling cans of paint in bulk at the Ratchet auction house. It was otherworldly, and even without looking at her face or body, her colors alone grabbed everyone's attention strongly.

Maya Ironwood the second stood next to all of them, laughing eagerly at all the jokes told. She looked like a fan girl meeting her favorite celebrity, sort of like how Navarion's sister Sharimara looked the one time she met Maiev Shadowsong in a bizarre episode he'd always remember. The captain of Maya's unit wouldn't be positioned near the head of the column during the march itself but had somehow managed to earn an audience with the Marshall during preparations. As the time to finally leave and split into three separate columns drew near, Captain Soraya fidgeted in an uncharacteristically nervous way.

"Maya just made eye contact with me, ma'am," Navarion told Soraya in an attempt to help her loosen up as they waited with a few more units by their unit's five sabres - four for riding and one for extra bags of supplies.

There weren't any full units between their group and the back of the mobile command center tent; just a few stray logistics workers and sabre attendants. Protocol and elven social mores, however, prevented the captain from just wandering up to the group of higher ranking officers and initiating contact without being invited. And so Soraya waited, ever the dutiful elven captain, constantly restraining, refraining and denying herself in order to uphold her people's values.

"Mhmm," was the only reaction from her.

Most of the soldiers in the military column behind them had already saddled up and prepared their sabres, hippogriffs and kodos and were merely waiting for the handful of upper-middle ranking officers to finish the last round of inspections that had to take place before everyone left. Even with the efficiency of the mostly older, vastly experienced Kaldorei officers, inspecting every armored soldier, saddled bag and groomed mount took a bit of time. Milling about with little to do, the soldiers were unusually loud for their kind and even responded to the attempts of civilians waiting beyond the wooden barrier fences to chat.

Right when the inspectors reached the end of the column, a vibrant ultramarine swirl caught the attention of every single person in the vicinity. Maya was pointing toward Navarion and laughing, and both Lamia and Silviel had turned around to examine the son of one of the Serenity originals. A sort of fast exchange took place between the Marshall and the granddaughter of one of the Serenity originals, and even Ragnar took notice of the unit that contained at least three people considered his friends. Not only did Soraya immediately stiffen up at attention, but she also pinched Navarion - hard - so he would do so as well.

"Ouch!" he helped quietly at the feeling of her sharp, claw like fingernails digging in to his formerly slouching back.

None of them were likely to shout, but Maya did wave to them after asking Lamia a quiet question which was likely permission to invite them over. Several other officials and their underlings excused themselves, jumping into last minute preparations for the march. All was well for their introduction.

"Permission to go, captain?" Navarion asked a frozen Soraya while waving back.

For a second she didn't answer, merely standing there dumbstruck. It was as if Soraya had built up just a little too much in this single meeting and didn't know how to react when it was upon them. Leaning close enough to her that his hand wouldn't be visible to the group of high ranking officers, he broke almost every rule in both Sentinel military code and night elf rules of social hierarchy and quite literally shoved his commanding officer on the lower back. Growling instinctively, Soraya remained stiff due to the presence of her own superiors but shot Navarion a sideways glance that told him she'd let him have it for touching her later on. Fair enough, he thought; eventually when she got over her indignance at being touched by an inferior, she'd thank him for the opportunity to walk next to him as his captain.

Thresha and Calil hung back with the other two units, leaving Navarion and Soraya to amble up to the group of big bosses in the Sentinel Army. So nervous was Soraya that the spirits in the area actually whispered of it to Navarion in a comical manner, and he almost felt bad for her given how seriously she took a simple introduction. Her attention was quickly switched from her own apprehension to the group in front of her, however, as that vibrant ultramarine ponytail swiveled and the Marshall faced both newcomers.

"This is the one I told you about, Marshall," Maya beamed as the two of them reached the group of five huddled near one of the kodos. "He's currently under Captain Soraya's command."

Navarion's mother Cecilia had told him and his siblings numerous stories about the twenty four other women she had spent the Long Vigil with. In a community of only twenty five people, you get to know each other very well across a period of ten millennia. Saluting Silviel and looking her over, he found her appearance, demeanor and general aura everything his mother had described. At only a thousand years old, Silviel was considered young for someone of her rank but it was her ambition that allowed her to rise through the ranks. Her noble yet entirely in-arrogant way of carrying herself felt uplifting to everyone around her, and the entire group of people all seemed to wait for her to speak, every one of them hanging on every word that spilled from her lips. And her hair...he wasn't crushing on her, but front a strictly objective standpoint, it was ethereal; even Maya, who was already engaged to an apprentice balance Druid back at New Auberdine, was enamored by the ultramarine ponytail.

"Son of Isurith?" Silviel asked, using his mother's birth name to address him.

"That is correct, Marshall," he answered quickly and as respectfully as possible. If he made a poor impression, his mother would most assuredly hear about it, and he'd have even more to answer for whenever he did visit home again. "She's still in close contact with the Sentinel consulate there."

"Is it accurate that your mother facilitated the opening of that office clandestinely back when we were still a part of the Alliance?" Silviel asked again. Those who had gathered around gasped in admiration at the tidbit of information his whole family felt proud of, but never bragged about.

"Correct, Marshall," he answered again.

A nod approval served as her reply, which was then mimicked by some of the more sycophantic officers standing around. Showing interest in all who were technically under her authority, Silviel then looked to Soraya. "You are the unit's commanding officer?"

Stiff and stoic to an exaggerated degree, Soraya just barely danced on the edge of overacting. "Yes, Marshall. Captain Soraya of New Nendis at your service!" Almost immediately after Soraya's sentence she winced as if judging the way she had delivered it, completely stressing out over the simple meeting.

Silviel smiled softly, causing Soraya to involuntarily do the same. Before anyone else could speak, a logistics worker jogged up a little too quickly, finding himself held back by Ragnar until given the word to let the young enlisted man through.

Seeming to recognize him, Commander Lamia nodded to Ragnar to signal that the young man was free to pass. Nervous before so many powerful people, the Kaldorei youth that must have barely been thirty years old wrought his hands until the dark troll tapped him on the shoulder in an indication to speak. What was a tap to Ragnar ended up being a shove to the much smaller night elf and the guy had to stumble to regain his footing and composure.

"Every unit passed inspection; the examiners have informed me that they give their seal of approval for pre-marching preparations."

Gracious as always, Silviel looked at Lamia for silent communication before giving the final orders. "You are hereby relieved of duty, soldier; good job."

"Thank you, Marshall," the youth said congenially while hurrying back to the city gate leading through the wall.

"Captain Soraya, is it?" Silviel asked so casually that it clashed strongly with the captain's deer in headlights expression.

Wanting to help his commanding officer save face, Navarion pinched the exposed skin of Soraya's tricep, once again crossing a line but saving her ass at the same time. "Ahem. Yes Marshall!" Soraya stammered after stomping on Navarion's foot.

"Would you do the honors of finding Archdruid Pontus? Traditionally we have one of them blow the Kaldorei war horn to signal a march."

Eyes like saucers, Soraya almost reverted to an earlier age. Childlike and truly touched, she gave up on suppressing her almost goofy looking grin. "Yes, of course Marshall!" Soraya grew so excited at the news that she promptly turned and walked away without even relieving Navarion of duty as she should have, leaving him with Maya's commanding officer instead and knocking over the winded young logistics worker when she inadvertently trampled him to get to Pontus, who was standing behind a few more sabres.

"She's dedicated, that one," Lamia commented politely while watching Soraya exit and the logistics worker scramble to pull himself up by a low hanging tree branch.

"Indeed. She'll go far once she learns to relax a little," Silviel added. Navarion would make sure to remind his captain of the irony later.

Once he and Maya were given permission to disperse, they made haste back to their respective units knowing that the war horn would sound off soon, the first proper Kaldorei war call in many years given their withdrawal from most world conflicts. The two of them chatted for a few minutes about the ancestral village of his mother and her grandmother before they parted ways, readying themselves near their sabres as everyone awaited Pontus' war call in anticipation. Thresha and Calil, both rather young for Kaldorei themselves and less experienced with the world, were giddy and nervous, both chatting together about the quickest ways to dispatch silithids as the suspense started to eat at them. Knowing that Astariel was the only one of his friends whose unit would be staying behind at the city, Navarion craned his neck around to look for her. The space where she had been holding civilians back was now occupied by another soldier, and he had straightened up his posture so much that he didn't even see her given how close she'd come to his position.

"Hi!"

"Gah!" he yelped, almost channeling his father as he nearly jumped, much to her amusement.

Her purple cloak had been pulled around frontside, concealing her hands and arms. Looking up at him, there was a smile on her face but he read people well enough to know there was a bit of sadness behind it.

"So were you planning on leaving without saying goodbye?" she joked lightly. It was probably an attempt to cheer herself up more than anything, and the tone of her voice insinuated that there was a measure of sincere worry in her asking.

"No, no, of course not. I might have poor etiquette, but it isn't that poor." She smiled again at his reassurance and her hands shifted beneath her cloak, but she said nothing more, as if waiting for him to speak first. "So apparently there is no major hive out here; just a series of medium sized mounds. It will be more of a sweep and corpse cleanup than a real war," he said in a low voice.

Her mood didn't change and he wondered if she didn't believe him, or if she was simply growing attached again. For a few seconds neither of them spoke again, and the ambient noise of the waiting sentinels around them almost seemed to erase everything else from existence. It made him greatly uncomfortable, especially given the fact that Zhenya's unit was around there somewhere and she might ostensibly see the look another woman was giving him. As much as he did like Astariel, he felt like a hypocrite considering how strongly he had reacted to the incident involving Zhenya and another man some time before.

Thankfully, Astariel began fiddling with some sort of object she had hidden beneath her cloak and continued the conversation herself.

"I hope so; I really do. It would be a shame to hear of anybody you care about fall on the battlefield." The word 'care' echoed in his mind far more than it should have and he began to wonder if he was just being a drama queen. "And all the same, there's something I'd like you to hold on to." Pulling the two sides of her cloak apart, she unfurled her fingers and held out some sort of a bracelet to him. It was simple and made of wood, but the carvings looked unprofessional and he had the feeling she'd made it herself. "I don't believe in talismans and such, so I won't call it my good luck charm...lets just say it's something that holds sentimental value to me. Perhaps you'll find the same on lonely nights out there on the warpath."

In a split second, the sense of pressure returned to him. Why now of all times? He had tried to hint to her that, even if he did like her too, they could only be friends. Maybe he hadn't tried hard enough, but he'd tried on some level. After many hellish weeks spent sulking at his bunk, his relationship with Zhenya had begun to return to its normal battleground-like state. What Astariel was asking him for felt far too intimate for him to be sharing with another woman, especially one that, if circumstances were different, he might have considered pursuing, whether he felt like he deserved someone as pure as her or not.

But he couldn't reject it. How could he even consider such a thing? Astariel was kind and sincere, but also inexperienced and naive. Her religiosity and almost adolescent sense of humor gave him the feeling that she could probably count her number of ex boyfriends on her fingers; she was in her mid-forties, but that wouldn't be so weird for a conservative night elf. For a long time he could sense her crush on him, and...well, there was no avoiding it, he hadn't done enough to change that. For him to reject her gift would not only hurt her, but would also confuse her and seem intolerably cruel. The fact that her gift held sentimental value to her not only made it more critical from her view that he accepted it, but also more of a mistake from his view were he to accept it. There were only seconds left before the war horn was blown, and his mind drew a completely blank as to any sort of solution.

Screaming at himself internally, blaming himself for leading a good woman on and loathing himself for his failure to do the right thing, Navarion accepted Astariel's bracelet literally just a quarter of a second before Pontus blew his war horn, upholding a night elven tradition that served little purpose but had an incredible psychological affect on both the morale of the troops and the relaxed, reassured aura of the civilian citizenry.

Her sadness and tension disappeared, Astariel smiled while walking backwards a few steps, joining the other sentinels holding back the crowds of waving and weeping civilians bidding their beloved sentinels farewell. The entire military column shifted and the footsteps of several hundred elves, sabres, kodo, and furbolgs as well as a few dozen draenei, highborne, dark troll and mountain giant irregulars thundered through the ground. Hippogriffs screeched overhead as the Sentinel Air Force provided bird's eye view scouting and aerial cover. Nature itself responded to the war horn's call, shrinking the vegetation in the path of the three military columns to more easily facilitate their march. Navarion could no longer look the hopeful young woman in the eye, cursing himself silently for putting ideas in her head simply by doing nothing and cursing fate for not simply leaving him alone to his own free choices and devices.

Captain Soraya soon rejoined their unit on her sabre, leading them on the left flank of Commander Lamia's coastline column. Far off to the other side, he could just barely spy Zhenya riding a sabre rather than the elekk he had grown used to seeing her ride on before. Focused ahead and nowhere else, he envied her position even as he resented her insistence on keeping their relationship secret and wished he could shrug the drama of his life off so easily.

Instead of a sense of dread over the upcoming skirmishes and sweeps, Navarion actually looked forward to them. If he lived, perhaps the experience would show him the correct path in life or better yet, help him to finally expunge the wanderlust from his system so he could just run back to the Barrens and live anonymously in an oasis for the next few hundred years. If he died...then that was the life of a mercenary. The life nobody had forced him to choose. Perhaps it was a befitting end, as selfish as he felt considering it. Because at that moment, all he wished was that he could just run away from his problems and start over again.


	16. As Your Last

Of all the different varieties of silithids they had to deal with, the reavers were the worst when it came to corpse cleanup. The large beetles that apparently were called colossi were heavier, but due to their stench none of the sabres, hippogriffs or chimaera would come near them. Burning their corpses was simply enough, and beyond that nobody had to deal with them.

The reavers, however, proved to be a delicacy for the mounts and animal warriors of the Sentinels, and even the dark trolls and some of the furbolgs would line up for portions of the bugmeat as well. Given that rations and supplies always had to be conserved on the warpath, Commander Lamia had ordered all the large, meaty reavers to be hauled back to the temporary camp the military column had set up beside the second group of mounds they'd assaulted so as to provide free food for a good number of the riding animals and irregular soldiers alike.

It was grueling work. Navarion had dug trenches during his time in the Argent Crusade, and thus was no stranger to the manual labor involved in the military campaigns of other nations. Lumber and ore had to be harvested in the move, makeshift war mills and barracks had to be constructed without proper professional supervision and ramparts had to be built straight into the ground. None of that was necessary when fighting alongside the night elves; their priestesses and Druids could work in tandem to direct the wisps and commune with nature, shaping the soil to fit their needs and growing their war structures from scratch. Truly, he'd become spoiled by serving as an irregular soldier in the Sentinel Army.

Hauling the reavers took courage even after they died. Wasps were smaller and lighter but much creepier; they didn't provide much meat, however, and could simply be cut to pieces to ensure they were dead before being disposed of. Reavers had to be dragged by a team of soldiers back to the feeding area, but their bodies weren't supposed to be damaged so as to preserve the meat. Their legs had a tendency to curl up into the air in an unnerving way not unlike nerubians, and their nervous system causes those various appendages to twitch even in death. Because many of the smarter ones could play dead, it made dragging their huge, heavy bodies back to the feeding area a task in and of itself. Most of the younger recruits were in edge.

Voodoo told him which ones were still alive, and Navarion did his part by running up and down the rows of fallen reavers before the cleanup crews got to them, sensing which ones were still alive and impaling their heads via his sickle. They'd often thrash violently when he did, giving everyone under the age of one thousand a good jump but earning him a great deal of thanks from the tired privates tasked by Lamia to drag the corpses back. Acting like royalty, the sabres and hippogriffs did surprisingly little to help, instead choosing to sit and wait for their meals to be dragged over to them. A few chimaera used their lightning breath to fry the reaver meat inside of the carapaces, but a few incidents caused that process to be quashed early on. And so Navarion continued to run up and down the rows of dead reavers, eventually growing tired of asking the spirits which ones were alive every time and merely stabbing all of them in the brain, already dead or not.

By the time he'd finished his part of the cleanup at the second set of mounds, he'd grown tired physically but not magically. Seeing no reason to skimp while technically on the battlefield, he left Thresha and Calil to drag bug corpses themselves and took Soraya's permission to go to the healer's tents. After thanking him and then lambasing him and then thanking him again for painfully pushing her to make herself known to the Marshall of the entire Sentinel Army, the captain readily accepted any requests he had, showing her gratitude through action rather than words.

Although the skirmishes at the first two clusters of silithid mounds had gone well, there were a few injuries. Even without any intelligent qiraji to direct them, the insectoids did have a sort of natural order to their attacks and a handful of sentinels did suffer nicks and scratches. Zorena didn't even notice Navarion join her in the healer's tent at the center of all the other tents that had been set up as a makeshift camp for the day, when the night elves - still the overwhelming majority of the Sentinel forces despite all the mercenaries from other races - were at their least energetic. By the time all those who needed healing had been patched up and sent back to their tents for the day, Navarion had managed to sit down first at one of the few chairs amid the empty sleeping bags on the tent floor and went unnoticed even as Zorena sat next to him.

"You aren't very percepti-"

"Help!" the bovine healer yelped at first, panicking as she realized she wasn't alone. When she turned and saw who it was, she scolded him via her expression alone for having snuck up on her. "Oh...winds at my back, please don't do that!"

"Sorry, I thought it would be funny," he chuckled while passing her a cup of water.

"Well, maybe it was a little, but let someone else be the punch line next time." Taking a big sip, she relaxed back into her chair next to him and enjoyed the quiet before both of them turned in for a good day's sleep. Out of nowhere, she turned to him and pulled him out of the pleasant, sinking numbness that came after a pitched battle. "I saw Astra give you something before we call left," she piped up wryly, as if she knew some great big secret.

Caught off guard to the point of hiccuping and choking on air, it took Navarion a moment and a few pats in the back from Zorena before he could speak coherently. "You...ack...you're monitoring me?" he coughed in shock, completely unready for the topic.

"Oh you don't have to worry, I don't talk. Besides, I think it's great now that you and Zhenya seem to have moved on from each other-"

"Zhenya and I got back together weeks ago!" he managed to blurt out in between residual coughs.

Confusion preceded disappointment which preceded suspicion which preceded irritation. The flux of emotions woven into Zorena's expression would have been an interesting case study in method acting had it all not been directed at him. Dread gripped him as he already saw the blame and disapproval headed his way.

"But I saw you...she...and she...no..." Zorena's brows furrowed in an irate manner, sending him on a guilt trip without even really trying. "How is this possible? Zhenya's behavior hasn't changed one bit since Astra told me you and her had split up-"

"Wait, how does Astra even know about that?"

"-and she's still living it up at the cafes and the barracks, even dancing with other men sometimes-"

"What?! I mean..."

"-and if you're anything like your father, I know you wouldn't accept that."

"...I mean, it was probably just a group dance."

"Not really, Navarion. Not that your behavior has changed much either - even I had assumed that you're still single."

Frowning and looking away for a moment, he tried to process the fast exchange in what little amount of time he had before the silence became awkward. Too much information came flying at him at one time. The stink bugs, he could deal with; this news just made him want to vomit. "This...it...argh. Yes, Zhenya and I are together and have been for more than a month."

Pensive and thoughtful, Zorena just looked at him for a moment, tapping a furry finger on her snout. "Neither of you act like it. Especially her. Look, I'm not your mother, but I'm old enough to give you the advice she's supposed to have given you," Zorena started, ignoring the quick flash of anger across his eyebrows at the slight against his mother. "I read people well. Even if you can listen to the spirits, I'm a lot older than you, and I know bad news when I see it. Zhenya is bad news. She's the kind of woman your mother should have warned you about."

"She's different when we're alone," he tried to counter, truly believing his words but finding himself pulled by a force he couldn't describe to speak without the certainty he felt inside.

"Everybody is different in private. Look, I'm telling you what I know from experience, you can accept it or reject it. But I know women like Zhenya and I know how I saw her dancing with those other men even the night before after we exterminated the first wave of silithids," Zorena continued, pushing further despite Navarion's guttural growl at the mention of Zhenya spending time around other men when he made a point not to even accept Tammie's thumb war challenges for fear of losing himself and flirting without thinking. "And that's entirely separate from you leading Astra on and giving her false hope. You even have me fooled."

At that, the strength and resolve returned to him. During his childhood he had only seen Zorena once or twice, but he knew of her from their family's vast social network. Like his siblings, he grew up viewing a large number of people who weren't blood relatives as more or less being like family members and Zorena was included in that. But all that conditioning didn't prevent the resentment toward her from bubbling up. That resentment of her words mixed with his resentment of himself for having let things slide so far, creating a volatile mix.

"I did notlead anybody on," he retorted, at least halfway believing his own words. He felt that his tone had been tempered, but the way that Zorena shrank from him insinuated that perhaps he'd lost control of his voice and expression, and a second source of guilt crept in as well. Facepalming for a second, he patted her hand to reassure her that things would be fine but he felt the tension in the top of her hand. "I'm sorry for that, alright?"

"Okay...okay...I believe you," she claimed, but the fact that she even brought up belief or disbelief in his words was telling.

"I didn't want it to happen this way. Astra and I are good friends and I wanted to keep things that way. I didn't know that she would...get so attached..."

"How could you not know, Navarion? She's sent you signals and you're the type of man who picks up on that, unlike your father. Every step of the way you should have been up front with her that you only wanted friendship. To not do so means to lead her on."

"How? How can that make any sense if the opportunity to clarify that to her never came up? What should I say - oh hey, we're all at the tea house and by the way I only want to be friends!" he burst out while shrugging in an exaggerated why, trying his hardest to evoke how futile he felt it all was.

"There are opportunities, there are always opportunities!" she shot back, becoming a little bit heated herself. "You have to try to understand what it feels like for people who feel trapped and unable to express themselves!"

Bothered in a slightly different way by how involved Zorena had become in his private life, Navarion calmed down a bit and licked the inside of his cheek while pondering her attitude. "The whole point about this is that I feel trapped and unable to express myself properly to Astra," he replied, his tone calm in a way that visibly bothered Zorena for reasons he didn't understand. "I know how that feels."

All maturity drained out of the ageing tauren matron in reaction to his comment. Crossing her ankles and shifting to a more defensive posture, she nearly huffed - nearly - as she smoothed out her unnecessary surgical apron and picked at a seam that wasn't there. "That's difficult for me to accept from someone like you," she murmured, affected by the conversation despite it not being about her outwardly. "I would have hoped your parents had raised you to be more perceptive."

"Stop talking about my mom and dad," he practically ordered her, throwing politeness out the window. "I don't understand why you keep bringing them into this; they were friends with you a long time ago when you served in the same war, and they were good times from what I heard. You're acting like...like..."

Spirits whispered to Navarion as he cheated once more, finally paying attention to his voodoo after it had been nagging at him for much of the conversation. Frozen in place, he studied the doe eyed tauren's face hard, noticing every detail of her movement as her eyes flinched, pricking up the skin at the beginning of her snout. One finger twitched as she tried to hold a poker face and keep inside whatever she knew he had witnessed, trying in futility to hide inside of herself. Even via normal, non magical observation, he could tell that Zorena felt torn between standing up and bolting out the tent flap and burying her face in her hands. Realization dawned on him in the most bizarre way he could have expected, and suddenly he both understood and sympathized with her attitude and involvement in his affairs just a little bit more.

When he noticed her breathing had become more rapid, he placed his hand over hers to both steady and comfort her, taking in what he had felt from her after some difficulty. She closed her eyes and he knew she wished she could turn invisible. He also knew that she would both revile and revel in comfort from another living being at that moment and leaned a little closer to her.

"Zorena...you...and my dad?" he asked in disbelief. His parents were head over heels in love with each other, and neither of them ever spoke of past relationships.

But Zorena shook her head, denying the extent that Navarion thought things had gone. "He never knew how I felt. I never told him because I was...trapped. I'd didn't feel able." Pause and silence punctuated her words, and her constant poking into his business made a whole lot more sense. "I felt uncertain, because I knew he and I could never have reproduced, and it was scary to imagine feeling that way for someone so...different. I bided my time and waited, hoping for the opportunity to come. When he finally told all our friends back on Draenor about meeting your mom, and how serious they had become...it hurt. I got over it, but it hurt for a while. But I had to just smile and congratulate him, because he found somebody that made him happy even if that somebody wasn't me. That's alright; that's life and it wasn't the first or last time, as tends to happen normally."

She stopped, but he could already sense what she wanted to say next and gave her a little push to help her along; she was still like family to him, and thus deserved his empathy even when frustrating him. "And you feel like you're seeing it happen all over again, with my dad all over again..."

"I see him in you. Even if you're more wild than he was and you haven't suffered the trauma he did, anyone who knows you both will see Khujand in you. And when Astra first told me she also knew you, and started talking about you...I saw myself. Myself pining over someone who isn't as pure as your father was. No offense, but you aren't innocent."

"I know...believe me, I know," he sighed regretfully. "That's part of why I try to push Astra away. Guys like me aren't any good for ladies like her. I'm corrupt, as corrupt as Zhenya. That's who I belong to; somebody just as tarnished and frayed as I, constantly fighting and upsetting each other. That's who I am, and who she is; just as Astra is somebody totally different, but perfectly herself."

Whether it was to seek comfort or indulge in something long since buried and forgotten, Zorena squeezed his hand for a moment as every muscle in her body clenched. After a while she opened her eyes and looked a little more controlled, but he felt guilty for whatever he had triggered in her regardless.

"People can change, Navarion. I've seen them change. Your parents both changed things for each other, and they're all the happier for it." Nodding to him as if signaling that she felt better after the confession, she moved to stand and he helped her up. "But promise me that you'll at least pray for guidance as to what the best choice for you is."

Head hung low as they both walked out the exit flap for their respective tents, he rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. "I haven't been praying for a long time," he confessed himself, rather shyly.

The two of them stood in the narrow walkway between the extremely crowded tent camp surrounding by the handful of day shift sentries, looking at each other in mutual loss. "It's never too late to start," she told him as they parted ways.

No words of goodbye were needed for the family like connection they had. In such a somber moment, it felt more appropriate to say nothing anyway as they left one another to their own devices. Zorena quickly disappeared among the densely packed tents and most likely collapsed on her cot among the other female healers after having expended her mana reserves. Navarion wandered toward the canteen; he felt the hankering for something warm and heavy like milk to help him relax his mind enough to sleep after such an exchange.

Ambling among the tents in a sort of trance, he tried his hardest not to think of the soap opera that had become his life before he sought to sleep. Perhaps the warm milk or a heavy meat bun would be enough to help him sink into the sleeping cot quickly and easily. Anything to take his mind off of the heavier topics he had to face.

Fate wouldn't be so kind to him that day, as he found out before he even entered the tent containing the dispensary for snacks and basic provisions.

"Can you believe how those draenei women dance?" the voice of a youngish night elf male asked rhetorically to a group of at least two other people from inside the canteen. Passing around the back of it and trying to squeeze in the space between it and the next tent over, Navarion was perfectly in earshot to spy on the guy talk taking place in the wee hours of the morning. "The way that one with the golden eyes arches her back..."

"That one is a rare treasure indeed," a second youngblood replied, though it was difficult to tell the two voices apart.

Encouraged by the response, the first one continued his lecherous rant. "She's like a pole dancer, I tell you. When you dance behind her, it's like you're just waiting for her to lift her tail..."

More muffled laughter rang out, and Navarion found himself inside of the canteen tent but didn't remember the one or two seconds it would have taken him to walk inside. The canteen attendant was also a make night elf like the three young men, but looked like he was trying his best to ignore the explicit conversation. The three youngbloods didn't even notice him as he walked in and continued their comments as if they had no shame. Guilt from multiple sources mixed into Navarion's jealousy and anger in a primitive, illogical but very biological manner. Images of Zhenya dancing far too close to other men refused to vacate themselves from his mind, fighting for his attention against the look on Zorena's face just moments before and Astariel's bracelet as it burned into the hide of his wrist.

"And the way her neck tendril drooped over her shoulder...you know, I heard if you pet it just right..."

The laughter from the young man and at least one of his friends echoed so severely in Navarion's ears that he felt real, literal, physical pain in his temples. Heart pounding so hard it made him feel dizzy to deny his fists the release they cried out for, he had no choice but to grind his teeth before speaking.

"That's no way to talk about a lady," he barely managed to utter, so hard did his molar teeth clamp down onto each other.

Not even taking the time to look at him, the ringleader waved his hand in a way that was probably an attempt to show he wasn't serious but instead came off as disrespect in the half elf, half troll's mind. "Chill, we're just having some fun."

The hand gesture pushed Navarion over the edge, but this time he didn't black out. Grabbing the man by his longish hair, Navarion yanked back and watched the guy's two friends stand up before punching him beneath the elbow in a way his mother had taught him would make someone's arm go limp for hours. By the time the ringleader had already crumpled to the floor in a screaming heap, Navarion's foot had already connected with the second creep's head, leaving the guy conscious but unable to stand up or see straight. The blade of Navarion's foot throbbed as he set it back down, but the third of the youngbloods who hadn't been particularly enthused about the exchange had already ditched his friends and disappeared among the tents, letting out a distress signal soon after.

Before he could behave even more rashly and stomp on either of them, the canteen attendant, obviously much older than them all given his slow speech and posture, had already moved forward to protect the downed creeps. Kneeling over them, he used himself as a shield and raised his hands in surrender.

"You could end up getting court martialed," the attendant warned calmly. "Whatever girlfriend drama you have isn't worth it, trust me."

The distress signal rang out even louder and was met by a few others, filling Navarion with panic as he considered the attendant's words. The two of them stood there for a moment, listening to the sudden clamor of dozens of blades being drawn and armor clinking in a way that was entirely disproportionate to a few of the soldiers brawling.

When the cries of the furbolgs met the buzzing of insectoid wings, they both knew something was awry.

"The day shift guards..." the attendant murmured right before being knocked down.

No crash or clang rang out as the tent collapsed inward on them. No real sound was heard at all other than the buzz of wings and the tearing of tent fabric. Light flashed through the silk tent cloth as the two of them frantically tried to free themselves, and Navarion just barely made out the civilian attendant stabbing a silithid worker in the compound eye with a kitchen knife. Unarmed and off guard, the shadow hunter leapt forward on his one good foot and hit the silithid in the forehead with an awkward palm strike hard enough to stun it. One solid push of the knife even deeper into its head and it dropped.

"Look out!"

Shoving the attendant to the ground in the nick of time, Navarion unsheathed his pistol and fired at a dive bombing silithid wasp at point blank range, just narrowly moving out of the way of the crashing corpse himself. Most of the tents were intact but a few had been knocked over during the sneak attack on the camp, and silithid workers - rarely ever seen in combat - fumbled to bite at the terrified, half asleep soldiers inside. Those who killed the worker castes were quickly dive bombed by the wasps in a bizarre tandem attack consisting of silithid soldiers and, technically, civilians. Never had this been heard of before, and it indicated either a new strategy for the bug people or simple desperation at a lack of numbers, their typical and sole tactic.

"Reload my gun!" Navarion ordered the attendant, shoving the pistol to the man's chest and turning so the ammo bag he always carried on his belt night and day faced the scared man.

Doing as he was told, the civilian worked slowly but handled the pistol and gunpowder surprisingly well. In the meantime, Navarion cast his heal spell on his foot, wasting a bit of mana on a nagging irritation rather than a real injury but knowing that they couldn't take any risks in such a situation. Before he could take the lead and try to help who he could, the attendant handed him another kitchen knife.

"It's better than nothing!" the older gentleman yelled over the battle cries and insectoid screeches.

The moment they stepped away from the tent, both of the disabled creeps beneath the tent were dive bombed by wasps right through the fabric, screaming as they were stabbed in ways that were probably fatal. Guilt over beating them up at the worst possible time could wait; the distraction their writhing bodies provided gave Navarion the perfect opportunity to quickly stab both wasps in the crevice where their heads met their necks and snip whatever important parts were inside. Channeling his mother, he made a sincerely hard battlefield decision to leave the two dying creeps; they'd been dive bombed at full force and probably had wounds beneath the tent fabric so horrific that his intermediate level healing would only prolong their suffering.

Leading the way again, both he and the attendant were delighted to find that while many of the regular soldiers scrambled to find their weapons, the irregulars - mostly mercenaries who had more combat experience under their belts - were quickly dispatching the wasps as they came. The workers were more of an annoyance unless they found someone trapped beneath a tent pole, which they unfortunately did in a few cases. The disgusting and cowardly nature of the silithids enraged the able bodied soldiers, and ululating broke out from the older women as they led the charge. When the wasps tried to soar to regroup and gain their bearings, they were met by archers so accurate that they could anticipate which way the silithids would fly and shot at open air, knowing the surprised bugs who had thought they'd have the advantage would unwittingly move right into arrow fire. When the wasps tried to dive once more, they were hit sideways by glaives tossed in such a coordinated fashion that the night elves (even most of the mercenaries were still Kaldorei) didn't even need to speak or give orders.

Wasps fell from the sky living but crippled as they swarmed around a black and dark green glow near the outskirts of the camp, where a few dead day shift sentries lied at the spot where they'd failed in their duties. Workers scampered away to be cut down by the less experienced greenhorns who could use the practice, but the wasps and a few reavers seemed determined to attack a caster of fel magic who caused the entire swarm a mountain of pain. Once on the ground, the wasps lost almost all mobility and became sitting ducks for the enraged sentinels. Their target tossed curse spells left and right, wracking the insectoids' bodies with pain but drawing too much aggro onto himself all at once. A grunt of pain and anger rang out, the warped voice that of the reformed satyr shadow dancer as he tried to tank the brunt of the swarm despite not wearing any armor.

Firing and reloading from a distance, Navarion tried to pick off as many of the airborne wasps as he could, leaving those who the satyr had cursed to be exterminated by the youngbloods. Although satyrs were normally stereotyped as being cowardly, this reformed one held his own and didn't even call out for help, as if trying to prove some sort of a point while also pulling aggro off of the others.

By the time the last of the wasps fell, so had he and Navarion along with Pontus who appeared out of nowhere and that archer from months ago who knew how to heal rushed to the furry red man's side.

Splayed out across the ground, the satyr pursed his lips and stared at the trees, turning his head away from his devastating wounds. To describe them as grevious would have been an understatement, and the fel energy that surrounded his corrupt kind had already faded away. Navarion and the archer both looked to Pontus, the resident restoration Druid, for guidance. When the ancient man gave no response, the hearts of both secondary healers sank.

Gradually but not slowly, the red fur of the satyr turned brittle and fell of as if his body was balding. The horns which signified his people's pact with devils grew even more brittle, ossified and fell off completely, and more onlookers gathered around to watch. It didn't take long to figure out what was happening, and by the time the old hooves craked to reveal transformed elven feet beneath, the whole area had fallen silent.

Removing his cowl to cover the dignity of the night elf that was formerly a satyr, Pontus knelt closer to look the dying man in the eye. Healthily glowing amber eyes met flickering ones as they gave each other the same look old friends gave one another upon meeting again after a very long time apart.

"Nature as forgiven you," Pontus murmured, placing a comforting hand on the dying, transformed night elf's shoulder.

Nodding in affirmation, the man turned and continued to watch the tall Azsharan pines sway in the light breeze until the glow of his eyes died out. Out of respect, most of the sentinels in the area backed off to tend to the wounded and haul off the silithid corpses for animal feed, leaving Pontus and a few other Druids to join the priestesses in performing the last rites for the fallen.

Perhaps he should have joined the other healers, mending the wounds and searching for his friends after a dastardly sneak attack. Instead, Navarion found himself hanging behind as the makeshift funeral took place. As was the custom when allies fell on the field of battle, the bodies were only moved insofar as was necessary to clean up the camp. All seven of them were lain next to one another close to where the former satyr had made his last stand of redemption, and the practice he'd witnessed before of praying for the balance to accept the bodies back into nature completed without disruption. Per night elven custom, there were no tears and little was said as possible as everyone dispersed.

The sneak attack had been warded off and the entire column suffered minimal casualties in the process. Cleanup had been quick, and hippogriff scouts sighted the direction from whence the silithids had come. After a rousing pep talk, Commander Lamia ordered only a half day of rest before the moved out again to strike decisively at the remaining mounds on the north coast in preparation for a final cleanup sweep on their long journey back to the city. All was well. Nothing was amiss.

But for a long time, Navarion sat near the flower patches where the seven bodies had been reabsorbed into the soil. Nothing remained of their fallen comrades, no trace at all as the footsteps of everyone leaving the spot echoed in the wind. An hour ago, all of them were there, alive and well...and now they were gone. Like so many comrades he'd watched die over the years. Comrades to whom he had been much closer and known so well. And yet he remained paralyzed at that spot until Pontus, noticing his lethargy, sat next to him.

Wise and patient but a man of little words, Pontus watched the flower patch alongside Navarion for a good while. There the two of them sat while the others either returned to sleep or joined the doubled up day shift sentries outside the ring of tents. The Druid exuded a serene calm that could only come from one who had seen nearly as many summers as Navarion's ancient mother, but even that natural sort of calmness failed to penetrate the shadow hunter's shell.

"When it's our time...we have no choice in the matter," Pontus told him quietly, perfectly reading into his troubled mind. "Such is the life every one of us here has chosen."

The old man's voice carried across the wind as if a part of it, and the truth of his words reached Navarion's mind even if his calmness hadn't. Sighing heavily, Navarion agreed after finding no retort or refutation.

"I wonder if I'll be forgiven for all I've done," he replied just as quietly, watching the way the flowers wafted back and forth in the breeze.

A rhetorical question that Pontus had probably heard a hundred times before. Smiling as he stood, he lingered for a moment before taking his leave. "Live every day of your life as if it were your last before the final judgment," he advised the preoccupied younger man before leaving.

No sleep was possible that day before the column rolled out again. Not in his state. For all the times he'd already pondered the prospects of dying on the battlefield and being left as a patch of flowers by comrades who had no choice but to move on, this time had been particularly hard for him. What made it all the more confounding was that he didn't even really know those who had fallen and held no attachment to them. Chalking his apprehension up to complications from his emotional state, he spent hours at that spot before finally finding something useful to do until they moved on once more, doing anything to numb his mind from all that weighed it down.


	17. Interlude

Different in private. Different in public. Different when the lights were out, different all the time.

They breathed together, functioning as one. United even when dividing themselves around others.

She dug her manicured nails into his back as he felt her even further up inside. His lips on her neck broke down every wall she'd erected.

They moved together as one, their hearts beat as one. There, alone, unseen by others but unable to escape one another, two sets of walls came down.

They expressed themselves without words. Words were the cheapest form of communication. Instead, they showed each other directly.

She clung to him for dear life, trying to get closer and closer to him. Nothing felt close enough. Not that time.

Different. Always different. This time, too different. Both of them caught off guard.

The back of her head cradled in his hand, she surrendered at the same time he did. Two people no longer wanting to fight. Their desires were the same; both of them realized it. Perhaps they realized it before...but they were without means of denial.

She arched her back; involuntarily. A reflex. A reaction of giving all of herself as freely as he gave himself. A connection far more intense than either of them had wanted in the beginning. In the time before. They'd gone too far now, too far for their own good.

And that's when they both made the biggest mistake either of them could have.

At that moment...that exact moment, that beautiful moment when she peaked, she broke as well. She broke, he broke. Unable to resist, they looked each other in the eyes as their climax sang, reverberating between them. Gold met silver completely exposed, completely unprepared for the raw nakedness of it.

Fear escalated but could not be evaded; both of them saw. Both of them saw the truth, unable to hide their feelings. What had been a base act to satisfy a physical need became something more. Something real. Something they had both known would be the end of them.

He held her close when they came down to the ground once more; for once, she didn't immediately push away from him. Different this time. Melting into his arms, she no longer avoided his gaze; there was no point. Neither of them had anywhere to hide; not after that night in her tent.

Silver held on to gold for dear life, for the first time not being rejected once she had what she needed. Maybe it was another lie; maybe there was no truth in the world anyway. Only different types of lies.

It didn't matter. None of that mattered. She clung to him and he clung back, knowing they'd crossed the line. There was no turning back.

Soft breaths danced across his chest as she held onto him. They'd have time to look away from each other awkwardly when the column marched again. Later. Not now.

Maybe everything could finally be different.

Please let it be different.


	18. Actions and Words

On they marched. Through the marshes, through the woods, across the shores and even into the larger silithid mounds. Step by step, battle by battle, Commander Lamia's column marched. Swarm after swarm had been exterminated. But after bug had been slaughtered and eaten by riding and fighting animals. Corruption after corruption in the land had been cured.

And on they marched. The eradication campaign was difficult. It was grueling, punishing, unforgiving and slow. There was plenty of danger but little excitement.

There were no epic confrontations.

There were no final battles.

There were no enemy bosses waiting at the ends of dungeons.

Just culling the swarms. Culling lots and lots of swarms, one after the other, all of them indistinguishable. Battle fatigue set in eventually, and the physical combat bore a mental counterpart as the troops all tried to stave off the crushing monotony of going through the same motions day in and day out. Finally, Navarion felt what his mother had described to him of her millennia spent in the Long Vigil, when a thousand years became indistinguishable from a thousand days.

The fighting became formulaic. Because of the boon provided by his stasis trap wards, Captain Soraya adopted the task of pulling the first waves of silithids. Once they figured out that the wards formed an impenetrable wall, they'd avoid them but since none of the silithids were ever left alive, that information could never be communicated. And so the formula played out: pull bugs, hold aggro, set down wards, trap, kill, repeat.

There were upsides to the arrangement. Thresha and Calil both increased in confidence a great deal; gone were the days where the two of them would drop their glaives and run in fear of being gassed by stink bugs. Having intimidating but immobilized targets to practice on helped them to gradually take more measured risks and press against untrapped silithids a bit more aggressively. Soraya noticed the change in them and resoundingly approved, pridefully watching the two youngbloods charge into the fray and let their moon glaives fly.

Navarion himself had done much to ingratiate himself to the captain as well. His connection to Marshall Silviel alone had landed Soraya an opportunity which, in her view, was a rather big deal. It didn't seem like a big deal to anyone else, including the Marshall herself, but for Soraya it had been the chance of a lifetime. Additionally, Navarion's war dance - the big, bad voodoo spell his father had taught to him and his sister Anathil - could provide temporary protection from harm for allies in a decently sized radius. Since Soraya was his commanding officer, it was her that the commanding officers of other units had to go through her to request that protection. Coupled with the fact that he was a battlefield soldier who wore medium armor but could also heal, and his presence had given Soraya plenty of reasons to be thankful.

Not that she'd ever tell him out loud. Ever the stern unit captain, most of her expressions of gratitude took the form of grunts and very subtle nods, and her readily given permission whenever he asked for a break from silithid carcass hauling or supply caravan tending. A woman of action, but not of words. And she demanded the same of her unit.

They were happy to oblige. Soraya had a natural talent for on-the-fly tactics, and Thresha and Calil both proved to be capable when backed up by Navarion's voodoo. When Zhenya's unit was added into the mix, the formation almost became overpowered in relation to the other formations in the military column. Pontus was as skilled as healers came, and knew to hang close to Navarion for protection as the shadow hunter set up his wards, picked off reavers via gunshots to the head and completely resisted the sonic screeches fired at him by a few of the bugs due to the blessing of Elune he'd received as a child. Both he and Zhenya could throw out quick, on the spot heals when Pontus was occupied though given the fact that she wore even heavier armor than the most fortified Kaldorei huntresses, little was needed. In combat, every movement Zhenya made was like a symphony of destruction; it was beautiful. And on the final sweep of what the scouts had thought to be the final mound, Navarion actually felt safe enough to leave Pontus under the protection of his wards and Soraya while venturing forward to join Zhenya in that symphony.

A wasp dove, going through the motions of the same telegraphed attacks all of its caste engaged in. As terrifying as the kamikaze dives would be for the unexpecting new recruit, they proved surprisingly easy to predict once the wasps hunched over and flew backwards for a beat. Unmoving, Zhenya hunched over herself in anticipation; her fighting style was about as unfeminine as a soldier could get, but that didn't matter; she was all about killing efficiently, not looking good while she did it. Bosom tucked in, shoulders curved forward and back hunched, she waited until the wasp had almost collided with her impenetrable armor before twisting back and hefting her warhammer without worrying about defense. So hard did the crystalline geode used as the actual blunt object of the warhammer connect with the wasp that it fell into pieces, the impact causing the ligaments holding its head, thorax and appendages together to snap off like a worn rag doll's parts. A second wasp slammed into her, barely causing her to budge and jamming its stinger so far back up into its abdomen that a portion of its internal organs fell out of its own mouth. Leaving it to die slowly, she pushed forward toward the huge silithid reaver charging straight at her, not even hesitating for one second to size the beast up.

The wasp threatening to slow down her own charge fell away when Navarion blasted it in the neck. A few more desperate workers fell to his sickle blade as he cleared her path of distractions and watched her meet the reaver head on. Before it could leap forward to snap its jaws at her, her warhammer had already been swung at its shoulders. Correctly predicting that it would pull back, her swing still connected as the bug didn't have quite enough time to pull away entirely and took the brunt of the hammer swing to the head. All six of its limbs stiffened and curled inwards as the silithid folded in on itself in death, immediately falling into paralysis from system shock.

Unscathed by the fight, she needed no healing other than perhaps rest after having felled so many of the insectoids on her own. Turning around to see him surrounded by several dead silithids, she relaxed and attached her warhammer to the magnetic carrying mechanism on the back of her body armor. Once the last few silithids at the latest mound on a coastal cliff were sliced and diced, the two of them were able to return to their units - if not holding hands, at least walking comfortably shoulder to shoulder without her pulling away or reviling his touch.

After tallying up all the kills, setting the mounts loose to feast on the silithid corpses and being relieved of duty by Soraya, the rest of their unit plus the draenei paladin were able to find a soft patch of grass near the edge of the coastal cliff, overlooking the ocean. Commander Lamia had given the order that no tents were to be set up until hippogriff scouts had scoured the area and confirmed or denied that they had completely rooted out the silithids in the immediate area. Without a proper place to rest, the four of them - Navarion, Zhenya, Thresha and Calil - resigned themselves to reclining on the grass until further notice.

Once they had all respectively caught their breath, they were able to actually engage in normal conversation that didn't involve who still had fresh drinking water and who needed to be healed.

Navarion admired the relatively calm waves of the ocean, finding a sort of soothing peace in the way the water moved so little despite the wind. "I could almost see myself staying in a place like this," he murmured calmly, feeling a tingling sensation as the battle fatigue drained out of him at the same time that the wind began to die down.

"Do you mean in New Nendis, or out here?" Calil asked.

"Out here. On this cliff. I could see me spending my years just waking up each night and watching the starlight reflect off of the waves."

A sly, barely noticeable rotation of one and a half horns informed him that Zhenya was looking in his direction. For once, he didn't turn his head immediately to see if she would talk to him first, and continued to look out over the ocean.

"It's certainly a nice place to visit, but I don't think I'd want to live out in the wilderness," Thresha laughed, reclining backward into her palms.

"You already live inside of trees; how different is it to be out here?" Zhenya poked at her, actually showing a rare glint of humor. "There are trees here, there are trees in the city."

"No, no, that's different. Totally different." Thresha appeared both amused but also accepting of the challenge at the same time. "The trees out here aren't suitable as living spaces, nor has nature designated the wilderness for us to live. We night elves live in proper groves and forest cities, protected from the dangers outside."

Showing a contrite reaction that wasn't normal for her, Zhenya reached over and patted Thresha's hand. "You don't have to defend anything, especially when doing so just makes me want to troll you even more," she joked again. For a split second, she glanced sideways to check if Navarion would react to her little jab at half of his heritage, but behaving unusually himself, he didn't take the bait. He wouldn't have for anybody else, and so that time, he didn't for her. "Anyway, it isn't difficult to appreciate the beauty here in north Kalimdor. I understand the sentiment of those who wish to stay at New Nendis."

"Yes, and not just the ones who have historical ties, either," Calil added.

"Personally, I find it amazing that the regrowth of Nendis has gone so well. Old Nendis was lost before I was born, but I remember hearing that it wasn't this large before - the city didn't even have the high walls it does now." Quickly and without warning, Thresha spun to her side and tugged on the leather jerkin beneath Calil's mail armor. "It's like that mountain fortress in Ashenvale that you told me your mother served at, remember?"

Put on the spot, Calil became awkwardly silent at first. His eyes lowered toward his booted feet splayed out before him and rather close to Thresha's, and he appeared to be at a loss for words at first. "Um...when? When did I tell you that, I mean?"

"Oh, you don't remember? It was just the other day!" Thresha shot back at him immediately, not picking up on his anxiety at all. "We were all at that one place...Zhenya, you know what I'm talking about, right?"

"Yes. Definitely." Obviously lying as she often did, Zhenya stared out into the ocean before them, not even seeming to take joy in what was once the thrill (for her) of deceiving people as an inside joke only she was on the inside of. Thresha continued to poke fun at Calil for forgetting in a friendly manner, oblivious to the fact that she was causing his mind to draw such a blank that the young man probably forgot how to walk in a straight line right there.

Spirits whispered and Navarion could tell that Calil suddenly became very aware of how close Thresha was sitting to him. A quick glance confirmed that the young man appeared a tad bit uncomfortable, though the reason wasn't quite discernible. The spot they'd all picked on the grass felt so soft and welcoming, and it would have been easier for Navarion to stay. The look on his comrade's face pulled at him sympathetically, however, and he chose the mercy of granting them privacy over his own relaxation.

"I need to go check on something for a moment," Navarion announced while standing up and stretching. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Barely even noticing him, Thresha and Calil waved to him while almost starting to bicker with each other - giddily on her part and shyly on his - about when and where the discussion about whose mother or whatever relative had served at which Kaldorei stronghold. From the corner of his eye he could see that Zhenya fixed her gaze on the ocean, staying put by the two youngbloods at the spot they'd chosen. Unfazed, Navarion continued to walk away from the edge of the oceanside cliff and strolled through the camp on his way toward the woods due east of where the last silithid swarm had come from. Healers, logistics workers and supplies stood tucked into the safe middle of the camp, while the mounts formed a sort of wall around them. The soldiers themselves were just beyond the animal wall, either busy in their tasks, busy on patrol or busy taking power naps on the grass.

Few people or animals in the military column were resting. Healers expent much of their mana curing every wound they could on the few who had been injured during the last assault. The new recruits among the Sentinels proved to be fast learners; elves generally picked up knowledge and skills a bit more slowly than the younger lived races due to their long lifespans, and tended to be more cautious when honing their craft. This new batch, however, grew even more skilled after each battle to the point where the change was already evident. Only a handful had actually been hurt during the last excursion and those who had been injured also had quickly dipped out of the battle before agitating their wounds and allowed others to take their places.

Among the majority who weren't hurt, all had found ways to keep busy. Sentries patrolled the outskirts of the circle of riding animals and supply crates and two hippogriff riders even circled overhead for a bird's eye view. Crates were opened, inspected and repacked while kodo tack was removed, brushed off and attached again. Commander Lamia's tent hadn't even been set up, and she stood to the west of their location ahead of her entourage while staring off into the distance. Although Ragnar's position between the Commander and the rest of the circular camp informed all those around not to disturb her and her three assistants, Captain Soraya's position next to a few other officers just inside the camp signaled that at least she could be approached.

When Navarion stood outside the circle of half a dozen officers, Soraya took notice and stepped aside. No other soldiers had intruded on the officers' discussion, but he had a feeling that she'd be willing to oblige given the benefits she'd found to having him in her unit.

"News, captain?" he asked her politely, standing at attention despite the lack of rest.

For a second Soraya hesitated and looked back at the other officers gathered in a circle. None of them noticed as they were too engrossed in their own conversation to really pat attention, and there was nobody behind Navarion coming from deeper inside the structureless camp to spy on them. Something was afoot.

"A second scout team was sent out and should be returning shortly," she whispered to him, but without leaning forward or stiffening up so as to not draw any attention to them.

"Why?" he asked, going through the motions despite knowing that she would have told him eventually had he stayed quiet. His interest piqued, he found himself unable to stay silent.

Her eyes darted around before she replied. "The first scout team claim that they found a hive. Not a cluster of mounds, but an actual hive. It isn't huge and it didn't look connected to any subterranean passages, but they claimed it was definitely a hive." Pausing for effect, she became very solemn but not nervous or stressed. "This is our chance to wipe out all the silithids on the north coast once and for all...but not everyone will make it. Good women and men will die. I guarantee that."

"You don't have to convince me, captain," he sighed a bit too casually, though she let it slide.

Soraya nodded and took a step backward toward the chatting officers, flashing a hand signal indicating that he could be at ease. "You didn't hear this from me; keep it to yourselves," she whispered just as she turned around.

"Yourselves?"

For once, his voodoo hadn't warned him loudly enough and he didn't even notice that Zhenya had followed him and given their two younger friends much needed privacy until the captain had walked away. Because she hasn't removed her mask helmet thing, her expression was unseen but the spirits at least informed him that she got a rise out of surprising him.

Even though she didn't look at him, he knew she had followed him rather than just happened to have been looking for the captain of his unit at that time. Both staring in the same direction as the commander further ahead of them for a while, the almost nonexistent wind had died down into a calm, soothing breeze that ruffled his indigo mane. In order to get a better view of the woods to the west, they moved on the other side of a row of sleeping sabres and a wagon containing crates of sanitary tissues that provided them a measure of privacy of their own.

Shoulder to shoulder, the two of them watched the sun hang just over the top of the high canopy of the woods before them, the light noise of the camp creating a sort of ambience to accompany the scene. Finally letting loose, Zhenya reached up and unlocked her helmet, unfolding the two halves and allowing perfectly imperfect face of hers to feel the warmth of the sun. The golden glow of her eyes prevented the sunlight from actually reflecting off of it, instead mixing in a way that didn't seem possible in terms of physics. The naturally black color of her disheveled hair had grown from the roots outward a bit, creating an interesting mix of jet black, neon yellow and hot pink highlights. One and a half horns crowned it all, creating the truest image of a warrior woman he'd seen outside of his mother's race.

So still did Zhenya stand that Navarion really did begin to wonder just how old she was. Surely her claims of millennia couldn't be true given her lack of maturity, but in truth he had no means of gauging that. After all the time they'd been together, traveling, fighting and sleeping alongside one another, the reality was that they didn't know each other that well. The last time they'd discussed personal matters, he'd brought up his siblings in the course of the casual conversation only to realize that she didn't even know how many sisters and brothers he had. Nor did he know where her parents were, if they were alive or what she'd been doing with her life prior to the time when her people crash landed on Azeroth.

There were things they did know about each other; her present belonged to him. He knew her likes and dislikes via direct experimentation, and he knew what few opinions she did hold about politics and religion. He knew her personality through her demonstration via action, and knew that she was as narcissistic and self centered as she was confident principled, even if her principles were a bit odd. He knew that she had a volatile temper that never reared its ugly head in an obvious, overt manner, and he also knew that she was just as sensitive as he was if a bit better at hiding it. Yet for all that they knew of each other via perception and experience, there was little official history shared between them. He suspected she didn't know the names of his parents or the places he'd been during his old guild days, and he certainly didn't know where she'd been during the decades between crash landing on Azeroth and serving as a mercenary for the Sentinel Army.

He listened for his voodoo; it drew a blank. It was as if her mind truly was empty staring at that sun above those trees. Not a care in the world bothered her...or she had simply cleared her mind of such worries. Right then and there, he realized that he didn't really know her well enough to tell either way.

"Once we take out this hive...it's all downhill," he started, trying to garner any sort of reaction from her. They had made up in their own way, has revealed a lot more than either of them wished to and by all measures should be acting a little more openly. "We'll be done in a matter of months."

A matted strand of black hair dropped down over her cracked half horn, teasing him with the knowledge that she might not be comfortable enough to let him tuck it behind her ear. "Done with this tour of duty, at least," she replied. There wasn't exhaustion in her voice, but there was definitely something else. When he tried to probe her soul, the spirits didn't speak to him clearly and even contradicted themselves. He'd become too reliant on his voodoo and had neglected the simple skill of reading people, and when she closed herself off in such a manner, he was largely left in the dark.

"You'll need to settle down one day," he reminded her lightly, testing the waters to see what exactly she had in mind.

Had he pulled such a move a few months ago, she surely would have reacted by surreptitiously insulting him or at least passive aggressively dodging the question. To his relief, at least some things were different between them now. A part of her opened up to him; it was on her terms, by her own choosing, but that part opened up.

"I don't plan my life that far ahead...I have no interest in that at all. When this campaign is finished, I'll decide where to move on to."

As guarded as her statement was, it was about as much honesty about her feelings as he could expect from her. There was no uncertainty in her voice, but he could definitely sense something else. Something that wasn't as impervious as the wall she always hid behind, or the almost comically heavy armor she donned in battle. There was a part of her that, for all her pretensions and confidence, wasn't invincible.

Risking all dignity he had, Navarion turned toward her a quarter and put his hand on her armored shoulder. A simple show of affection and even if there wasn't anybody else around, it was technically in public. Many times before, she'd embarrassed him badly in front of others for violating her rule of secrecy about their relationship, rejecting him in front of their peers or simply belittling him in the sort of dismissive way only she had perfected. She'd taught him to keep their intimacy private the hard way, and after so many years of stubbornness, he'd learn to take those hard lessons during the time they'd been together. Too much floated in his head, however, and he found himself unable to be contained. He didn't try to pull her close just yet, but the physical touch was audacious for them.

Her head remained motionless, but he could sense her golden eyes shifting to meet his silvers. He had her attention. "If it comes down to it...would you move on without me?" he asked, not trying to mask the vulnerability in his hushed tone.

Taken aback, she shifted and grew wide eyed. She saw through his attempts to hide that vulnerability; she always did. But he always still tried to hide it, and this time he didn't. He caught her off guard this time, as he'd managed to do more than once over the course of the long march, and although she quickly accepted the sincerity in his question she appeared to have difficulty wrapping her head around it.

"I've never allowed anybody to get this close before," she whispered hesitantly. Throwing her entire persona out the window, she inched sideways and drew a little bit closer to him, allowing his hand to slide from her shoulder across her back to the center, just below her neck. Even through the cold thorium of her armor, he felt a warmth there that she only ever tried to stoke by begging him for it in private. It felt different this time. "I don't know anymore."

That was all he needed. Inch by inch Navarion moved in until his arm rested firmly around Zhenya's shoulder. He held her close, finally feeling what it was like to be normal with her; neither to have her pulling away from him nor to have her dragging him into a back alley after a night at the tavern for a temporary, almost routine release that led to her becoming cold to him again. She just stood there, almost leaning into him as he hugged his arm around her. Two hippogriff scouts broke out above the canopy, swiftly approaching the officers and the commander's entourage on the other side of the sabre drawn wagon. They watched the two scouts approach silently, admiring the yellow sun above the trees and the unspoiled mountains of the northern Azsharan peninsula like any other couple on a trip in the wilderness.

He craned his neck to look down at her. No longer did he try to behave in a subtle manner or pretend that he wasn't interested in her. Long ago, that had led to him being hurt and to her apologizing insincerely; this time, he dealt with her unpretentiously. "It's okay to let people get close to you, sometimes," he told her softly but without whispering his voice as if to hide how he felt.

The two scouts landed in front of the commander and strode off confidently, determined but not frantic. Ignoring them completely, Zhenya looked up at Navarion, letting him inside a sort of special place. A secret place, more secret than the physical side of their relationship. Discomfort flashed in those sparkling eyes but there was a bravery there as well. It was as if she feared him despite terrifying him so much with her belittling and mind games; she feared the closeness. She feared the intimacy. And she admitted that fear to him in a way not even the spirits could pick up on.

"I can't express those feelings in words. I don't know how." Leaning her head onto his chest, she relaxed into him and suddenly he felt like it was...not somebody else, yet not her. He didn't know how to describe it even in his inner monologue. Things were different. "I prefer to show my feelings via action...it means much more."

Ragnar led Commander Lamia's entourage from their spot at the front of the camp, trailed by the two scouts and the officers. Surreptitiously nodding to the couple sideways, Soraya confirmed the truth in the reports as the leaders of the military column strode toward the center of the encampment and spoke to Pontus near the healers' area.

Too little, far too late, cruelly brief, Navarion wrapped his other arm around Zhenya and pulled her close. Sliding up his torso and around his back, her armored hands bore a softness that clashed with her normal ungraceful roughness, and for the first time she hugged him in a non-sexual way. Time plodded on, refusing to even stand still for a second and grant them some sort of calmness as Lamia, Soraya and Pontus stood atop a large rock at the center of the camp. The war horn was blown again, and the final march to destroy the new hive once and for all commenced.


	19. Too Little

The wind died down on the plain of grass and dirt that late afternoon. For a good while, it had been blowing gently, covering the scent of those downwind and whispering promises in the ears of those who heard it. Soothing and peaceful, it could pass between one's temple and the shell of the ear and tickle lightly without being too cruel. But like all forms of serenity, it wasn't to last, and nature was to claim the right to giveth and taketh away.

The grass stopped billowing in waves by the time they'd arrived, holding still in the last moments before it was trampled and matted back into the soil. The ground itself would have wept were it able, seeing the inevitable clash and clamor that would pound it further down. The valley below the ledge was already low enough, dipping down as if a river had flowed there many thousands of years before. He'd have to ask his mother if one actually had; when he finally saw her, if he finally saw her, assuming there would be a day to wake up to after this one.

No mountains or boulders provided any cover from the coming storm. There were no more hills or places to hide, not even any trees behind which to take cover. All was out in the open, out on the table, out for both sides to see regardless of how many eyes they had respectively. Moderate sunshine hampered visibility for both sides, once again equalizing the coming conflict. They had both become aware of each other, nullifying any chances for surprise. The ocean lied to one side, and impenetrable marshland to the other; the edges of the valley on both sides sealed off any means for escape. Do or die, winners and losers. Just the way it should be.

Far, far into the air reached the spires of the modest but very functional silithid hive. Scraping toward the clouds like disgusting, putrid fingers, the useless but unnerving claws of the living structures signified the insectoid infestation for all to see. Like the night elves, the silithids grew their living spaces; unlike the night elves, they tore the environment apart while doing so, running through woodlands and wildlife faster than the most overpowered goblin harvester. They'd dug their proverbial pointy heels in, burrowing a good ways into the land and spreading their odious, creeping sludge where vegetation had once grown. Workers, reavers, wasps and scarabs skittered around the complex, warning each other of the looming threat and rallying their ranks. Without a means for ranged combat, they almost sentient bugs would need to simply rush their attackers head on, hoping that the archers and ballistas of the Kaldorei miraculously failed to cut into their thick carapaces before they could reach their targets and blade met stinger.

The living, fleshy hive pulsated in panic as it sensed the sympathetic vibrations of non silithids approaching. The wasps circumambulated around it, whipping themselves up into a frenzy and forming a sort of interstellar looking ring as they found a sort of rhythm that normally would have required the presence of an intelligent qiraji to direct. The reavers lined up, shielding the workers and scarabs who hung back near the burrows and protecting the home they'd wipe out all other life to keep. A few massive colossi waited among them, sending the usually slow and plodding reavers into an irate state and causing chitters to erupt from the waiting line of dark pink silithids.

Encircled by her entourage, Commander Lamia watched, flashbacks of the War of the Shifting Sands likely playing across her mind. Thankful that Captain Soraya had ingratiated herself to the commander enough to earn their unit a spot by the front, Navarion tried to take in all his surroundings. The glaive throwers and ballistae had been lined up next to the commander's entourage on the ledge, prepared to hurl projectiles at an enemy which had no choice but to rush forward and engage. The units of archers stood next to them, ready to move forward and pick off the bugs from afar as needed, stalwart as if they had served nature during the Long Vigil despite the fact that a good deal of them had been born after it ended. Heavily armored huntresses formed the cavalry and infantry, ready to charge alongside the more offensive priestesses and Druids for the initial clash. As if to punctuate the fact that Lamia favored overkill, the mountain giants stood in the middle of it all, covered overhead by members of the Sentinel Air Force. Given the fact that the battle would be on open terrain, thus robbing the night elves of their favored tactics such as sneak attacks and hit and runs, morale was unusually high.

The two sides waited; the silithids warily and the Sentinels patiently. In a battle that size, there would be casualties, but the odds were in their favor; it was only a matter of tending to those who received injuries as speedily as possible. Only the cries of the furbolgs among the many irregulars peppering the mostly regular enlisted units met the silithid chitters, punctuating the stoicism of the night elves. Pointed ears awaited the commander's call, ready to give their lives for their holy land after so many decades of chaos and loss of territory followed by so many years of quiet reconstruction.

They didn't have to wait any longer. Taking a deep breath, Lamia made the call this time, screaming her battle shout from the top of the ledge. Despite the soft spoken nature of all elves, her voice was loud and carried over the entire valley. Hundreds of Kaldorei women met her cry by ululating in unison, even intimidating their men somewhat as they stepped forward. Many of them bounced on their toes, thumped their glaives against their shields or tapped their bows against their armor to create as much noise as possible. It was a far, far different sight than what Navarion had witnessed among the Sindorei across the ocean or even during smaller campaigns he'd taken part in under the banner of the Sentinels. A newfound respect added itself to his already great respect for his mother's people, and he began to understand why other elves viewed the Kaldorei as being more or less the orcs of the elves. A sea of elven steel helmets bobbed up and down as the clamor of the Kaldorei built up to a crescendo, causing the silithids to respond in a yet more agitated fashion.

Instinctual and trapped by their evolution, the bug army charged, making the first move and sacrificing a front line of workers in the kamikaze push. Whooping and hollering, the female Kaldorei became even more excited at the sight, and the priestesses had to work hard to prevent the huntresses from just dashing forward before the numbers of bugs had been thinned out. Intimidated by their own woman more than the silithids, the Druids and handful of male sentinels hung back from the front line, leaving the warrior-clerics of the night elves to handle the restraining of the huntresses from the first wave of glaives. As large in diameter as a dinner table, the glaives launched by the ballistae were originally designed to cut through the ramparts of enemy fortresses, but they cut through the front line of silithid reavers all the same. More excited shouts rang out as the first wave of arrows followed the first wave of glaives, and wasps that formed the silithid version of a crude air force began to fall straight out of the sky. Carcasses from at least two species of silithid littered the battlefield only twenty seconds into the initial charge, and the morale of the Kaldorei troops could almost be felt physically it jumped so high.

Hampered by their lack of ranged combat abilities, the silithids pushed on when the armies of sentient races would have fled. More of the bug people emerged from various smaller burrows in the corrupted soil, replacing the ranks of fallen fighters as the buzzing mass surged forward. Displaying an uncanny ability to reason and a devotion to the survival of the whole, the faster but much weaker silithid workers dashed ahead of the reavers just as the second wave of glaives ate into the front lines. The workers were numerous but small, and it almost seemed like a waste to expend good glaives on such insignificant foes. The second wave of arrows followed soon after, and the reasoning abilities of the bugs proved unable to save them from the archers. Merely flying higher, the wasps failed to escape the elven longbows and many more of the ranks of the most dangerous silithid caste fell to the ground and splattered, bathing the soil in putrid yellow blood just in time for the two sides to meet.

A commanding shout from Lamia was echoed by those of the priestesses, and the archers stood at ease as the huntresses rushed forward. More imposing than draenei and much, much faster, the huntresses of the new generations were chosen much in the same way they had been during the generation of Navarion's mother, Cecilia; by far the physically largest of the night elf females, generally even taller than the men, the huntresses wore armor as heavy as any Orc raider and formed the first line of defense for the Sentinel Army. Infantrywomen rushed forward first and slammed into the huge ravers with their tower shields; the reavers were heavier than elekks but the huntresses had finesse and technique, and angled their drive such that they held their ground and proved an impenetrable wall for the cavalrywomen and balance Druids behind them to move around and flank the enemy. Their tower shield and heavy shinguards prevented even the smaller scarabs from breaking through the line of defense and running amok. Mounted huntresses ran around to the sides, bouncing their glaives off of the large reavers like boomerangs as the balance Druids picked off the scarabs and workers by summoning thorny roots and vines from the ground below. A third wave of arrows picked off the wasps as they tried to dive bomb the huntresses, and those that got through weren't able to penetrate the elven steel armor of the heavy infantry.

As a support fighter, Navarion continued to hang back among the much smaller archers as well as the other ranged fighters, healers and the commander's entourage. Captain Soraya, who had been grinning with delight, pointed to a large disturbance in the corrupt soil behind the last line of reavers though Commander Lamia had already seen it: three colossi had been hiding, buried in the ground and previously unseen. Energy renewed by the addition of three being even larger than the mountain giants, the silithids pressed harder on all fronts. More of the scarabs began to break out of the formation and attack the cavalrywomen and Druids who had been nipping at the flanks of the thousand-strong insectoid army, and the previously nonstop kill count of the night elves was temporarily staved off.

Strategy changed quickly in reaction to a move Lamia had already anticipated, and finally the retinue of the Sentinel Air Force took to the skies. Dozens of hippogriff riders led the charge, followed by a few chimaera and even hired Orcish wind riders from the Barrens as the wasps found themselves besieged in the air, their advantage of higher ground nullified and their attention quickly preoccupied. A different battle cry rang out as Lamia gave the order for the irregular soldiers hired from mercenary camps - save support fighters like Navarion - to join the fray. Technically more experienced than the relatively young ranks of night elf sentinels, the mercenaries found themselves sent in for the most dangerous part of the job in the skirmish: the cleanup. More scarabs and even a few stray reavers and wasps broke formation and chased after the cavalrywomen and balance Druids, failing to actually kill any of them but putting them on the defensive and causing them to flee in circles, kiting in an attempt to avoid being overwhelmed. Most of the mercenaries were also night elves but without uniforms, and when mixed in with the large numbers of furbolgs, tauren and draenei, they blended in and looked like any other outlanders who fought for the highest bidder. Hooves, paws and feet kicked up dirt as the irregulars lived up to their title and attacked the stray silithids and even besieged the flanks of the main body that clashed with the first line of huntresses. Finding themselves in better position when functioning as independent hero units, the mercenaries took the brunt of the damage but also felled the silithids at an even faster rate than the regular enlisted soldiers.

Just as the three massive colossi were about to crash into the Sentinel flankers and even their own insectoid brethren, they were given pause when staring down immovable objects of pure rock. Three mountain giants stood in their way, thundering onto the battlefield wielding entire trees as clubs and shouting taunts at the confused ultra-bugs. Encouraged by the sight, the huntresses on foot pushed and cut through the entire second rank of reavers with their elven lances. At the prompting of Lamia through her priestesses, the guardian Druids shifted into bear form and joined the cavalry and balance Druids, holding on to aggro as more of the scarabs and workers were cut down. More waves of silithid emerged from the burrows after the colossi as if they had been buried beneath the massive juggernauts just in case the hive were ever threatened. The last wave of the Air Force joined the fray above, completely preoccupying the wasps and leaving the ground forces in a completely separate battle of their own.

Her loud voice no longer sufficient to give orders, Lamia pulled a few archers forward as flag bearers to wave cloths of various shapes and colors around to those on the battlefield; she had assumed, as skilled as they were, that the mercenaries would be used to the Kaldorei war communication system after having already served in so many other militarized and guilds.

At first, she ordered the flag bearers to give the signal for the irregulars to join the mountain giants in squaring off against the colossi behind the main ranks of the silithids. Scarabs and brave workers huddled beneath the massive juggernaut bugs, emboldened by their presence. A few of the irregulars responded to the signal but not enough, the main body of them either failing to notice or even understand the various color, shape and wave combinations that night elven soldiers considered as easy and natural as one's own mother tongue. As a minority of the mercenaries pulled away from flanking the mass of hundreds and hundreds of silithids in the middle of the battlefield, the overall position of the Sentinels was weakened without much of a tangible benefit to the giants. Those who rushed to the big stone beings' aid found themselves greatly outnumbered by the scarabs and workers who immediately charged for the lone irregulars, cut off from aid as the giants' tree clubs met the colossi's pedipalps and beetle-like horns. A few of them ended up being inadvertently stomped flat by the giants as the colossi trampled over the workers, all of them tiny beings amidst a sea of gigantic feet. Those mercenaries that failed to heed the signals of the flag bearers found themselves put as a disadvantage as the numerical superiority of the silithid flanks grew. The cavalrywomen and bear Druids found their work load doubled as they had to protect not only the balance Druids but also the various draenei vindicators, tauren braves and furbolg totemics who found themselves unaware of the tide of battle due to misunderstanding the flag signals.

Although a measure of shock settled within the ranks, Lamia hardened her expression and her priestesses down on the field of battle itself followed suit. Navarion tried to shoot Soraya a sideways glance, but she pretended not to notice and Thresha and Calil - forming a sort of backup for the unit considering the importance of any unit with a healer - stared blankly but without confidence at the change before them. Even though the huntresses lanced the reavers and the giants clubbed the colossi as quickly as they could, a marked sense of urgency manifested into what should have been a quick and simple cleanup job at the site of a minor hive. Salvaging what she could, Lamia formed an impromptu strike force of the archers and feral Druids and sent them forth, keeping only the most basic support and healing units with her on the ledge overlooking the small valley. Rushing to the aid of those on the flanks, the strike force had the extra difficult task of not only taking out the silithid skirmishers but also getting the confused and the wounded among their own allies out of the way. Sprinting in feline form, the feral Druids ushered the more overwhelmed of the irregulars and the more injured of the balance Druids out of the way just in time for volleys fired by the archers to price the carapaces of the silithid scarabs. Precision and accuracy were the key, though more than a few mercenaries were injured beyond recovery by the horn thrusts and mandible chomps of the swift scarabs.

When the first hippogriff rider succumbed to the onslaught of the wasps and fell to the ground, there was a noticeable shift in the air. The silithids were dropping like gigantic flies, and wasps rained like large hailstones at a far faster rate than the night elves were. Regardless, the fact that they had been able to inflict casualties on the Sentinels drove them, and wings buzzed in renewed fervor as the reavers pushed forward with a second wind. At least one unit of the archers and feral Druids were martyred as the scarabs swarmed over them, but the real sense of urgency came when only two of the mountain giants succeeded in their battles against the colossi; the third, fighting to the bitter end, shattered into pieces with a loud crash as its battered opponent stabbed it in the throat in a killing blow. Exhausted by their own victories over the massive war machines of the silithids, the two surviving mountain giants struggled to knock away the irritating scarabs, avoid stepping on any more mercenaries or bear Druids and chase the scampering, wounded but very much alive colossus all at the same time. With the infantry preoccupied by the nearly depleted ranks of reavers and the cavalry and strike teams up to their necks in scarabs, little stood between the last limping colossus and Commander Lamia's entourage in the ledge. Constantly streaming down like a spring shower, the corpses of wasps rained down in the hundreds, peppered with a dozen or so more airborne sentinels as if to punctuate the hard, gritty climax of what wasn't supposed to have even been much of a battle.

Not wanting to give the colossus the gratification of stabbing into the unstable, earthen ledge they perched on, Lamia ordered her entire entourage down the slopes to the right and left and onto level ground. Surrounded by healers, buffers and a handful of archers and infantry, Lamia reached the field proper and faced the charging colossus. Pieces of its carapace hung to the sides like a broken chocolate candy egg, yet as the juggernaut bug gained momentum its limp almost seemed to improve. A few workers reached them first, and despite her extremely advanced age, Lamia quickly drew her sword and cut them down before her younger officers had a chance to. For good measure, Navarion threw his stasis trap wards down to protect the healers, though even with their amount of voodoo power he wasn't sure if they'd remain embedded once the colossus crashed into them. Under the commander's orders, Soraya, Thresha, Calil and a number of other infantrywomen broke formation and stood in a half crescent to the sides, ready for the impossible task of intercepting such a massive creature. The colossus was bigger than the mountain giants, at least the height of a two story treehouse and much, much wider. The very ground beneath their feet shook as it approached and increased in excitement. When level to the rest of the battlefield, Navarion had no means of seeing the progress of all the huntresses, strike teams, irregulars or mountain giants and as far as he could tell, he and everyone else in Lamia's entourage were in their own. They braced themselves, prepared to absorb the brunt of the collision as the archers further wounded the great bug but failed to stop it.

Shocking the fel out of them all, the colossus tripped and stumbled, smacking into the ground face first, cracking its carapace a little bit more and knocking over the silithid workers in the area due to the shockwave. When the dust settled, the image of Ragnar became clear; Lamia's dark troll bodyguard, despite being perhaps the least stealthy person on Azeroth, had somehow managed to sneak behind the stampeding colossus just in time to grab it by one of its five remaining legs and pulled so hard that he single handedly tripped the massive monster. In a stunning role reversal, the mammalian sentinels swarmed all over the insectoid colossus, quickly cutting it to pieces in retribution for the fallen mountain giant. This time the renewed fervor swept up both sides in the conflict, and the remaining reavers broke formation entirely to chomp on whatever mammal they could reach without worrying about protecting themselves. At the sight of all three of their champions having fallen, the silithid wasps ignored the Sentinel Air Force and dove. Hippogriff riders picked off a great number of the wasps in the process, but by that point the entire insectoid force had been overtaken by a suicidal craze, throwing themselves at the Sentinels and mercenaries alike in an attempt to take down as many as they could, knowing the battle and the hive had more or less been lost when the last colossus writhed helplessly on the ground as its limbs and even jaws and horns were severed.

Hanging back in a circle around Commander Lamia, Captain Soraya ordered Navarion and any other healers or buffers who wore armor and could survive a fight with a silithid to rush forward. The addition of wasps complicated the final sweep of the silithid forces considerably, and the hippogriff riders found their hands full as they had to get to close to the ground to chase down the wasps that they exposed themselves to the spines and spikes of the reavers. The presence of the large mountain giants and chimaera precluded most of the offenses of the archers as well as the balance and crow Druids, forcing the night elves and their allies to fall into a loose skirmishing formation to deal with the great mess of silithids. Pandemonium ensued as the Sentinels dominated the silithids but without their usual finesse; this fight was nasty, up close and personal. What had once been more than a thousand insectoids dwindled to just over a hundred, but interspersed with confused mercenaries and young, relatively inexperienced enlisted regulars, and the healers found themselves restricted by the radius of Navarion's wards, the lack of a clear view of who was wounded where and their own relatively short experiences overall.

One of the few ancient healers, Pontus waded into the thick of battle, shifting into a sort of bark skin form as he pulled numerous young night elves and allied races from the brink. So unafraid was he that Navarion had no time to reload his gun are the first few shots and holstered it, slashing at random silithids instead as he tried to follow the foolhardy old healer right smack dab in the thick of the battle. Gleaming gold and one and a half horns signaled that Zhenya was there with the rest of her and Pontus' unit, also trying to catch up to the devoted restoration Druid. Ignoring the flutter of his heart at seeing the paladin thirty yards across from him and the sinking in his chest at a pained grunt from Commander Lamia far behind him, Navarion stepped his nerve, telling himself to be objective and repeating the fact that the battle was basically won already and it was only a matter of containing the rampaging silithids and protecting the vulnerable and weakened.

Because his sickle blade was only the length of his own forearm, the half night elf had to wait for the silithids to practically jump right on top of him and dispatch them at short range. That proved no trouble for him, but it slowed him down greatly and left him at the whims of the crazed, unfocused insectoids and their erratic movements as he dodged their pincers, stingers and friendly fire from desperate archers to follow his charge. Just as he regained sight of the resto-Druid's antlers across the crowd, an unfortunate furbolg ursa totemic took a wasp stinger to the heart and fell right on top of Navarion. One of the few people present who was equal to him in size, the large bear man toppled him over, bringing him to the ground along with the wasp whose stinger remained embedded in the furbolg's chest cavity. One quick slash of his sickle split the wasp's disgusting head down the middle, but the death groan of an older, pureblooded Kaldorei male caused Navarion's back to arch in anger as he realized he'd failed in his protection attempt. By the time he shoved the totemic off of him, he saw Pontus hit the ground, clutching his throat, chest and abdomen as blood gushed from the very wide wound of a full on, flush bite from one of the larger reavers. The bug had already let go by the time the half elf jumped to his feet, crunched inside its own carapace by a huntress on foot and a tauren brave working in tandem.

Pushing the sorrow and sense of loss out in the midst of battle, Navarion utilized the residual anger to cut and slash a path through the last buzzing bug wave, trying to save who he could. Despite having been treasured as a buffer, he found himself unable to fulfill his main duty. His big, bad voodoo spell was incredible and rendered his allies immune within a certain radius for a certain amount of time, but it was based on a war dance that required time to charge up; he wouldn't survive the initial moves and thus found himself relegated to hacking, slashing and throwing out heals the best he could. Unlike Pontus, he wore a combination of leather and chainmail that provided some protection, though even he sank when one of the wasps managed to sting through his jerkin and into the side of his abdomen while in its death throes. His blessing of Elune protected him from the poison, but the stinger itself opened up a nasty puncture that he didn't have time to heal completely as he wrestled with a reaver that saw the opportunity to strike. A half heal and his regeneration would have to do as he ignored the pain and the strain, grabbed the reaver beneath the lower jaw and sliced its head open only to find himself set upon by another.

Tide turning completely, more of the mercenaries and younger regulars pulled back for healing, leaving the more experienced fighters to sort out the mess. A woman's road - feminine but deep and scary - pierced the air as shining light pierced the sky in an arc and lit up the ground off to one side. Occupied by healing two huntresses who were distracting a group of wasps, Navarion tried to ignore the dying tauren and another reformed satyr off to that side as he found himself free enough to focus on saving a few of his comrades. One of the wasps crashed into the ground next to him, leaving a crater and eliciting more whooping and hollering from the Kaldorei women and even one of the men as the last blob of silithids dwindled even further. Speeding off eveni faster than he could keep up with despite wearing plate armor, the two huntresses rushed to save a group of wounded archers as the wasps and another reaver turned their attention to easier targets.

Screeches and chitters rang out along with the loud rumble of the planet itself all the way at the other end of the valley. Lights lit up the dimming sky as the priestesses summoned their starfall spell, obliterating the spires of the hive with their silver energy granted by the Goddess herself. The spires crumbled, crashing to the ground like a demolished city as one of the most powerful offensive spells on Azeroth signed the death warrant of the silithid infestation. As if to punctuate the end of the battle, the crow Druids wove a cyclone that lifted up the remaining pieces of the hive and flung them all about the valley, ruining the remaining mounds and burrows and negating any chances of the silithids possibly rebuilding.

Pain stabbing into his not yet healed abdomen again, Navarion felt safe enough to drop to one knee right in the midst of the battlefield. Any morale the primitive brains of the silithids might have held was lost, and they fought based purely on spite rather than any sort of will to win. Carapaces falling all around him, he let the exhaustion kick in despite the raging conflict, trying to catch his breath after having expent all his mana on taking care of others.

One of the women roared again at the same time that a few of the younger recruits fled the last raging blob of silithids or were stabbed and bitten. The ground lit up once more as a paladin held her own in the center of a swarm of large reavers, and panic gripped Navarion's soul as he realized who it was. His body having assumed the fight was over, he found his leg cramping up from the manaburn as he tried to stand, and growled in anger as a few younger enlistees and a Tauren proved unable to break up the swarm. Fighting every screaming, pained nerve ending in his tired out husk of a body, he forced himself forward, trying in vain to step over all the corpses of foes and a small number of friends as he tried to reach Zhenya who, ever the foolhardy, heavily armored tank, had tried to take on the swarm herself when the tired out and inexperienced regulars pulled back. Her warhammer swung and literally knocked one of the elekk sized reavers into the air as she furiously felled every insectoid she could.

A wasp tried to tackle Navarion, biting into his right bicep with its mandibles but failing to pierce his chainmail. Gouging its compound eye with his gun itself, he forced the wasp off of him and pistol whipped it into submission before slicing it into pieces with his sickle. Although he wasn't hurt physically, the wasps was his size and the tackle sapped his waning strength, and far off in the distance he could even feel his stasis traps fade as the mana source they were connected to - him - faded as well.

The light died out on the ground, and the consecration spell faded away and ceased cooking the remaining silithids alive inside their carapaces. For a brief few seconds, merciful yet punishing seconds, Navarion had a clear view. Valiant as always, she towered over a pile of death insectoids. Standing atop the pile like some sort of deity of death, her blood dripped out of the various punctures that had been punched through her impossible strong armor. Looking like she'd fought half the silithids herself, she wavered a bit atop the pile after slamming her warhammer into the abdomen of an oncoming wasp, her golden eyes flickering as her own mana was spent as well. Stained, dented and scratched, the suit that had become her namesake had lost some of its gold color as well, covered in the blood of bugs she'd killed and allies she'd granted on the spot healing to.

It all happened in slow motion. Ignoring what were likely tears in his back and calves, he ignored the burn of battle and energy drain as he launched himself forward just a little bit too late. The last reaver, by far the largest, opened its jaws as it leapt toward her as well, catching her from an angle she wouldn't be able to swing her warhammer at in time. When he tried to scream in warning, saliva caught in his dry throat and he choked, feeling a weird pressure in his nostrils and chest. Even when he slipped in the bloody mud, his efforts were for naught; Zhenya already saw it coming. Exhausted, off guard and at a back angle as her hooves slipped amongs the bodies, there was very little she could do save acknowledge to him that there was nothing either of them could do to stop it. No words were necessary; she said all she needed to when she used the blunt end of her warhammer to push him away lest he tried to leap in front of her and absorb the clamping jaws aimed right at her waistline. She might not have been at the right angle for a counterattack since she was facing him, but she was at the perfect angle to prevent him from throwing himself between her and her attacker.

His heart froze as the massive jaws slammed shut, cracking slightly as they shattered from their own attack but finishing the job all the same. It was all she could do to hold Navarion away and absorb the scissor slice on her own long enough for him to come to his senses and take the distraction provided by her buckling under the bug to sliced its head clean off. Before he could even collapse in a heap, she hit the ground in two pieces as the dying reaver cut her in half.


	20. Too Late

Above it all hovered a grey sky. Billowing and shifting, the clouds bore a sort of darkness to them despite there being no rain. Because it was dusk, many may not have been able to discern the subtle difference between the increasing black of night and the subtle grey of a cloudy sky. Just enough light filtered through, however, to make the difference in color apparent to glowing eyed observers, casting a gloomy sense over what remained a joyous occasion for the majority.

The cyclones raged in the background as the last of the hive spires was struck by magical starfall, shattering it to pieces as a funnel of air cast the formerly living chunks all the way out to sea. The tall pine trees of the north Azsharan peninsula swayed in the naturally invoked storm and the moon magic of the priestesses lit up the early evening sky with their bright arcs of raw, non-arcane energy ripping the remains of the silithid structures to shreds. The scene was like a symphony, it was beautiful, and completely wasted on such a somber time and place. What had begun as a pitched battle and then degenerated into a clusterfuck of mostly young, unprepared soldiers on their first proper military campaign ended with a bang. Ground shaking, wind whipping and chunks flying, the entire hive complex was ripped apart off in the distance, and even many of the regular enlistees who had fled to tend to their wounds ran back into the thick of it, hacking and slashing in their renewed fervor as the last of the silithids gave up the fight and tried to flee. Cleanup crews chased the cowardly insectoids around, reveling in their impunity as they used the thick carapaces as target practice.

Once the starfall and cyclones stopped, the surviving wasps rained down onto the battlefield like confetti as the remaining hippogriff riders landed to partake in chasing around the fleeing silithid workers. The reavers and scarabs didn't stand a chance against the victorious Sentinels and mercenaries, merely leading them on wild goose chases across the valley as the met their end at the hands of night elves blowing off some steam. Even Commander Lamia, bruised and injured after having waded into the tides of battle herself, hurried toward the center of the valley to direct the final sweep, perhaps reliving some sort of revenge fantasy for friends and loved ones lost during the campaign in Silithus a thousand years before. Try as she might, the younger troops had broken formation and didn't heed her calls to rally and let the Air Force clean up the silithid stragglers in order for the casualties to be tended to; though she'd likely be issuing a number of punishments and reprimands later, the younger soldiers temporarily ran out of earshot just to cut down the last fleeing scarab.

Cheers broke out all around despite the presence of fleeing silithids and fallen comrades in need of emergency healing. All around them, the soldiers celebrated as if the battle hadn't been a complete disaster for a military power that prided itself on fighting at a distance and avoiding casualties as much as possible. Were this the Alliance or the Horde, the break in formation and the independent operation of numerous units would have been of as little a problem as the loss of brave comrades during war. For the Sentinels, it simply didn't live up to their perfectionist standards even if they got the job done and suffered 'only' twenty lost comrades or so.

Given the fact that less than five percent of the troops actually died, everyone except the healers and those who lost someone close appear to be in high spirits, leaving the support classes to tend to their relatively low amount of losses toward the center of the battlefield. No rain fell, but the gloomy clouds almost seemed to break apart, raining flaky but cooled off embers onto the ground that only one lone shadow hunter could, apparently, detect.

Surrounded by unnatural trenches and potholes dug by trampling colossi and blasts of the wrathful balance, two figures lied helplessly on the blood soaked ground. There may or may not have been more troops marching past to finish off the wounded, straggling silithids on the field - neither of them would have noticed. Not at such a time.

The embers were cold to the touch, cooled pieces of dark cloud as they drifted toward the ground. One by one they floated around, coating the ground like a colorless layer of dust. Vague figures moved around them, hoving in and out of view to the command of battle shouts like phantoms on a plane unreachable. Streams of grey rippled through the air, accentuating the dust kicked up by the sabres and the tauren so rapidly that it didn't even have time to settle. Several more dark figures like them dotted the landscape, living out their own experiences of loss as the minority - those who hadn't made it, those who had laid their lives down so a city days away could sleep easily - bore the inevitable burden of war. Fair but unfair, fate proved neither cruel nor benevolent that night, but rather unfeeling; unfeeling, uncaring and entropic.

Leather knee pads dug into the bloody mud to gain traction as manaburned muscles strained to shove the dead reaver corpses out of the way. The insectoid husks easily tumbled to the side, forming a little fort of corpses in addition to the blanket of dust that all could see and the coat of ashes that nobody else could detect. A sinking weight like an ethereal wrecking ball threatened to break though the ground and drag the shadow hunter into whatever hell awaited below, a prospect that didn't seem half bad as he sought the remains of his paladin. Trembling hands wedged themselves in between chitinous carapace and cold thorium as they worked their way to get a good grip without causing any more damage. Scooping her up, he could feel the shallow breaths and the lack of shivering or even wincing in pain as he ignored the pain inside and out to pull her closer to him. Through the ember laden air, he could see the faint glow of two golden orbs telling him that somehow, some way, there was a flicker of life left. It was weak, it was fading, it was without hope, but it was still there.

Sliding her up his thighs as he continued to crouch deep into the mud, he laid what was left of her diagonally across his legs as absolute terror, a bone crushing panic unlike anything else he'd felt before, pushed him over the edge of numbness. The ice box that was his chest stung him with its freezer burn as he intentionally plunged, too much of a coward to face his own emotions. Whether she had reacted the same or was simply more accepting than him, he did not know, but she displayed no outward feelings herself as her still living remains reclined into the seat formed by his thighs. Letting all her muscles go limp, she looked up at him and said nothing, waiting for him to perform all her movements for her. Flashbacks of scrubbing her off in the shower like she were some spoilt princess threatened to bring back that dreadful concept known as feelings and he quickly blocked them out, trying to detach himself from the blood, gore and innards spilling out onto his knees.

Her lower body slumped facing the opposite direction, her hooves pointing toward them. Her legs, crotch and hips all remained intact, and the clean cut at the top of her lower body thankfully faced away from them, sparing him a sight that he knew would cause his heart to palpitate and stop beating right then and there. Her torso, arms, shoulders and head were all unblemished aside from the few puncture holes the large reavers had impossible managed to punch through her plate armor. Down at the end of her waistline and what was left of her upper body, there was a cut through her armor and herself so clean that there was less blood than he'd seen during other acts of dismemberment during wars he'd participated in in the past. Unable to look, he merely held his free hand by the point where she'd been ripped into two separate halves, cradling her head with the other. Despite the literal, physical pain in his entire body associated with depleting one's mana reserves entirely, some strange voodoo miracle took place and he found himself able to charge one last futile heal spell. Searing the sliced organs, spinal cord and flesh closed with the light side of his dualistic school of magic, he increased her suffering but bought precious time to see her one last time; a selfish yet fitting recompense that formed a sort of role reversal for the both of them.

Shaky yet careful hands delicately unhooked the latches on her impenetrable helmet-mask combination, allowing her to breathe just a little bit more air into quickly dying lungs. The helmet featured two holes for her one and a half horns; once it was latched and locked shut, it could not be removed, but once it was opened it easily popped off. As if knowing she'd need to reserve every iota of her energy if she wanted to live long enough to speak to him, she didn't even bother lifting her head to assist him as he removed her helmet and simply allowed him to take it off himself. Gold flickered once more as he watched the life fade from her by yet another level, and even the pores of her forehead and scalp stopped sweating despite the obviously high temperature beneath a tightly enclosing helmet. Her natural black locks mixed with the pink and yellow dye like an incomplete rainbow, complementing every part of her that was missing its wholeness in some way or form. Opposite parts felt like they'd been ripped out of him, and all he could do was watch the other half that completed him as a being slip away.

The back of her neck felt cold to the touch, but she didn't cough or shiver. Her hands laid over her head slightly as they had when sprawled out on their bedrolls so many nights together in the tent, but her limpness reminded him that there was nothing passionate about the last moment they'd ever share. Smashed by a giant mallet by the sense of loss, he screamed at himself internally to tell her something, anything, before he'd never be able to tell her off again. Those two beautifully imperfect eyes looked up into his, examining him as if she had not a care or distraction in the world. One of her eyes had always been slightly higher than the other if one got close enough to inspect her face, but the fact that the horn on the same side had been cracked and half of it broken off accentuated the feature, balanced out the asymmetry and not only made it unnoticeable but more beautiful than had everything been even. Without even noticing what he was doing, he began to run his thumb along that perfectly imperfect cracked horn, feeling the ridges one last time. A flagrant display of affection, the cooled ashes that coated the battlefield blotted out all sound and floated like dust motes around the little pit of silithid corpses he'd dug, protecting them from prying eyes.

Working her muscles despite her exhaustion, one side of her lip curled up into what could almost be described as an exhausted smile as the sensation of his thumb running along her lovely asymmetry. The size able dip between her septum and her upper lip twitched, and he fought to avoid thumbing it was well, wanting to reach out to her yet not knowing how. There were mere precious seconds left before they were both gone forever: her in body and him in soul. They would both die together in their own way, and instead of seeming romantic, there was nothing but the crushing depression of refusal to accept the inevitable.

What he could realistically ask her, he did not know. He could ask her about her real age; she was as likely to lie as to tell the truth, even during her last moments. He could ask if she had planned to move on with him after the campaign, and she lived; of course she'd tell him yes no matter what her actual plans had been. His mind reeled as one possibility after another popped up and was shot down in the span of only half a second, and he found himself empty handed and without defense mechanisms. Stripped bare, his naked vulnerability broke through, recognizing the futility of hiding.

When Navarion tried to speak the first time, he found his throat too sticky and his nose too congested, and he went cross eyed as he urked the words out. "I'm sorry," was all he could say at first, feeling the idiocy of his own words, the vanity of interrupting her solemnity but the guilt over potentially saying nothing at all.

Lying with finesse in the way only she could, Zhenya nearly smirked up at him. "It's okay," she replied, muffling her wince as he sniffled and tried to contain himself.

For sure, most of her stomach and intestines had fallen out when the reaver's jaws clamped around her forcefully enough to break themselves along with her armor, but she didn't react in pain. She'd likely gone into system shock and felt very little, yet he had enough of his sixth sense about him to know that her mind remained lucid. Fully aware of her surroundings and his close embrace, she didn't seem to be in a rush despite her life bleeding out of her, content to be held when she'd so cruelly rejected his embrace during life countless times before. Not even after sex did she allow him to hold her like this; whether she let him now due to true affection for him and him alone, or simply fear of death and the desire to be held by anybody available, he would never know. More likely than not, she didn't even know herself. But none of that mattered. Not anymore.

Conscious but dizzy, he swallowed a bit of her own blood in order to clear her throat enough to speak. A gaze so caring that he almost couldn't believe it was her looked back up at him, and he knew that the time had come; the few seconds they had were borrowed as a result of him injuring his spirit by casting himself into negative mana anyway.

"I'm sorry, too," she coughed, and he felt his abdominal muscles tear from the force of her effect on him. "For everything."

Those words, too little too late, ripped into him regardless and he found himself reveling in finally hearing them as much as he wished she had left her own selfishness aside just one time and left him without the last words that would haunt him forever.

Not even knowing why, he laughed while coughing, finding humor in their miserable situation. Swallowing whatever was in his throat and sinuses down and bearing the sickening nausea in order not to lose whatever seconds they had left, he forced himself to talk despite choking. "Whatever happened between us...it's forgiven. I only hope you feel the same," he whispered, seeing nothing but her face and hearing nothing but her voice, ignoring even the stench of ash raining down on them.

Nodding her approval, her body shuddered and he knew she was in the throes of death. So many times had he held dying comrades who had been too greviously injured to be saved, even with resurrection spells. But never had he lost someone like this; not like this.

Blood dripped from her mouth down her chin, and he leaned down close to wipe it off and listen, knowing this was their last chance to share themselves. The glow of her eyes began to fade, but she remained conscious and clear the whole time, not falling into the delirium before death experienced by so many.

"I have no...living family," she breathed out, not pausing for fear of losing her chance to complete her last words. "I have no home...no possessions. I leave...nothing behind...except you." Her words echoed through his mind, and he found himself hypnotized, numb beyond the point of even feeling his pain. "I have slept...with...many men before...but..."

The glow mostly dissipated and the whites of her eyes began to reveal themselves. Her irises were still gold, but the shine that signified the power of a being who could live thousands of years escaped her, leaving her to be claimed by mortality. All emotion left her face as the muscles that controlled her expressions gave out, and she seemed unable to even blink. His throat and lungs crystallized as he stood still even if cruel time refused to, and for the first time he could look her in the eye uninhibited by the glow.

"...you're the only one I truly made love to."

Popping his back in a way that was unhealthy, he hunched over the remaining half of her, wanting, needing to savor what he could before she left him. One last time, his lips brushed hers, and for a second the warmth remained there. In spite of having so little fight left, she found it in her to respond ever so slightly, and they kept their eyes open as they kissed deeply. Paralyzed and unable even to cry, he found her head moving away from his as she leaned back into his arm, gazing up at him the entire time. Kicking himself for his inability to reply with anything meaningful, he had to suffice by gazing back, sparing her the gruesome sights of the battlefield and ensuring he was the last thing she saw. A part of him whispered that her words weren't entirely well thought out, or that it was more of the usual dishonesty from her; not so much because he doubted her but because he found himself floored by such a claim, that of all the people she'd been with - quite a few by her stories - he had been the last and most significant. Still another part of him wanted so badly to believe it, and to think that his bruised feelings and wounded heart - bruised and wounded by her so many times - were reciprocated even if she'd been unable to admit it in life.

Already limp in his arms and the glow faded from her eyes, there was little change save the sensation of her soul passing on, tickling his arms and chest as it left her body. There was no point crooking his neck around to see it; he'd witnessed death and practiced his voodoo enough to know that such a thing wasn't possible. The soul of a living being couldn't simply be viewed in that way, not under normal circumstances. Instead, he savored the final sensation of her pressed against him as it moved in but fixated on those beautiful eyes the whole time. Far too limp to even move, her hands lied cold inside her armor, never to caress his mane or dig into his shoulders again. That feeling of her soul passing was the last of Zhenya that Navarion would ever know, and when she finally did pass on, he felt as if he hadn't savored the moment enough.

A cloudless sky devoid of any grey revealed the stars as dusk turned to nightfall. Alone on the battlefield after most of the other casualties had already been moved for burial, a grieving man held half of a slain woman in his arms, rocking her back and forth and adjusting her hair until it was perfect. All the other healers kept their distance out of respect, averting their gazes to give the exposed couple some semblance of privacy as he whispered to her his goodbye; too little, too late.


	21. Lie

A lie.

"Yes...it's fine."

Another lie.

"Valiantly on the battlefield. As good a way for anybody to check out, if it comes down to it."

Dressing up the lie doesn't change what it is.

"Just a little stomach bug is all. I'll wait it out, as long as I have water and that crunchy bread from Tanaris."

Intellectualizing it away doesn't make one intellectual.

"We're close...if I could just wait here alongside the others."

Finally, a bit of truth.

Dizziness settled in once he sat on a log next to the others. Which others, he didn't know. They weren't members of his unit. Three of them had also lost people close to them; that was reason enough to stay. Blinking, he tried to get his bearings and check where exactly they were.

"Statistically speaking...I mean, you know, it's a fair way to look at it."

"Right."

"For every hundred of us, less than five fell in battle."

"Exactly."

"Yes."

"Objectively speaking, the campaign was a resounding success."

There were at least three of the four of them speaking. Only an hour later, he found himself unable to recall who said what or if he had even participated in the conversation himself. It was much easier to merely sit, respond with words as empty as those the others uttered and wait for one of the officers to scold them into marching again.

"Well, we should all be proud of what we and those close to us helped to accomplish. A city full of good people is now safe." This time, he knew the voice wasn't his, but the words provided some solace despite feeling so hollow.

"Not only were the silithids wiped out, but so were some thieves' dens and pirate coves in the process. They're saying that the northern peninsula of Azshara is one of the safest coastlines of Sentinel territory after northern Darkshore." One of the sentinels sitting at the logs with the group; her voice sounded weary but hopeful, as if she had been convinced by her own words only once she uttered them out loud.

It may have been day or night; he couldn't quite tell. A few days had passed since the disastrous battle...maybe a week. After berating the younger troops for the disorganized clusterfuck that was their assault on a minor silithid hive, Commander Lamia had been surprisingly merciful and marched the military column straight back toward New Nendis, only straying to decimate a few outlaw camps here and there on the way.

New Nendis. Now Navarion remembered where he had been waiting among the other bereaved soldiers. They were almost in viewing distance of the city; another column of returning soldiers passed them by. Some joined them around the fire and some that had been with them joined the marching column. Once the threat had been neutralized, officers were much more lax about the exact location of their troops and when they returned during the three day grace period.

Unknown to him, the group of four...five sentinels who had switched in to the moping group mostly recently didn't know each other. At least he wasn't the only anonymous, grieving soldier. He was the only one who had been sitting there longer than a day, however. There had been three sitting around the burnt out campfire in a small clearing directly next to the road when he'd arrived. They'd moved on and others took their place, and others took their place, and so on. Nobody knew that he'd been wasting so much time in the same spot, going over the same rambling conversations with different groups of strangers until his commanding officer came to look for him.

At first, he didn't realize that someone from outside of the group was talking to him. Nobody else in the group seemed to realize it, either. They just continued retelling stories of how they'd watched their best friends and shield sisters fall, how they'd watched their comrades swarmed by biting bugs, how they'd watched the healthy glow fade from an ally's eyes until the whites showed. Like living zombies, they completely ignored Captain Soraya even when she stepped on Navarion's foot to get his attention.

"Attention, shadow hunter," she ordered him, her tone unusually soft and delicate.

Not even feeling it or willing it, he rose awkwardly and stood before her, his gait uneven. Saluting with his left hand, he tried to focus his vision and was surprised when he saw that she wore plain clothes for once despite giving him a direct order. "Yes ma'am," he croaked, his voice having gone hoarse from talking at first and then hoarse from disuse when he fell silent for at least half a day.

Looking him over, there was a concern written on her face that was humiliating for him. He almost would have preferred it had she just punched him in the stomach once, hard, to get him to fall into shape. Instead he received a motherly act from the last person on Azeroth her expect it from. His misery truly must have been apparent.

"You look like shit," she told him without an ounce of disdain or mockery. It only made him feel even worse.

"Yes, ma'am," he droned without thinking. Wincing at his absentminded statement, she reached out to drag him after her but held herself back knowing there were people in clear view.

Nodding for him to follow her, she led them down the naturally paved road leading toward New Nendis in silence. Both the walk and the silence had an incredible grounding effect, and after a few minutes he found himself slowly becoming aware of his surroundings and his condition. Something had happened...something traumatic. It had happened perhaps a week and a few days before, the few days having been spent camping out in the open on the side of the road with whatever despondent soldiers recognized the shared sense of loss in him and sat down to chat without even exchanging names. But when he saw the high walls and bastions of the city over the horizon, he knew it would have to wait. As much as he wished he could let himself burn and dissipate, he still had a duty to fulfill. And no matter how depressed he was, he still retained enough of a sense of dignity to know that he couldn't afford to break down in front of others, especially not his peers in the military.

Watchtowers lined the road to the city, manned by soldiers who, by and large, had seen little conflict over the past few months. Below them marched caravana of merchants both local and foreign, chatting happily as if a bloody conflict hadn't just unfolded. It was as if everyone forgot that people had died. Resentment battled identification inside of him, causing him a sensation similar to acid reflux. Of course they weren't devastated like him; they hadn't fought, and they hadn't seen what he had seen. People like him fought so people like those civilians could live normal lives, untouched by all the violence. He wasn't supposed to feel any bitterness about it. Yet as his mind became lucid and clear, completely aware of his surroundings and the time he'd spent in a dirty makeshift camp, he felt little other than bitterness. He couldn't afford to let himself feel anything else.

Comfortable with the silence, he stifled a groan when his captain broke it.

"They were very close to writing you off as absent without leave," she told him quietly once they were away from the larger groups of travelers. "I heard you were out here and already registered you as having returned."

Touched and embarrassed by his typically stoic captain technically doing him a favor, he felt disappointed at his inability to display any enthusiasm. "Thank you, captain," he mumbled while having intended to speak more clearly.

If she had been angered by his monotone response, she didn't show it. Folding her arms in front of her as they continued down the road, she relaxed into the most casual demeanor he'd seen her in; she almost felt like a normal person rather than the perennial militant he'd grown used to. "Listen...off the record," she started, already making him bristle. She strategically pretended not to notice and continued. "I informed the others. I'm sorry, and I know it's deeply personal, but I did it for your sake. Thresha, Calil, Tammie, Astra, even Fyndir...they know not to talk to you about it, and they've been told everything they need to know. It will spare you a lot of conversations you don't need to be having right now." Immediately after her passing on of the information, she fell quiet again, finishing the topic in both of their minds.

Grateful but despondent nonetheless, he grunted in affirmation as they continued walking. Truly she had gone above and beyond, and her concern for her subordinates wasn't lost on him. "Thank you, captain...I mean it," he mumbled again, though at least that time he had found himself able to look her in the eye. They passed by the traveler's waystation and a few hawker's stalls marketed toward adventurers that had been set up just outside the city walls, and before he knew it they had passed beneath the gates.

As if worried that he wouldn't find his way back to the barracks, she walked with him for a bit as they ambled into a portion of the city he didn't know that well. She'd obviously dealt with soldiers who had suffered the loss of those close to them before, as she knew exactly when to talk and when to be silent. By the time they passed one of the city's many mediums sized shrines set up near public drinking fountains, she slowed down and rotated to face him but at a distance. He could tell by her posture that she wanted both to part ways but also to leave him with something to ponder. Considering how much she'd assisted him by registering him as present despite his technical dereliction of duty, he couldn't refuse despite his fear of what she might tell him.

Instead, she turned the tables and filled him with concern instead. Her glowing silver eyes contained a sort of fear that he detested seeing in a person so strong; it scared him. "If I could ask...just one question," she whispered to him, her voice unwavering but her throat congested.

Unsure of what to expect, he looked her over in a vain attempt to discern what preoccupied her. A few passersby walked in between them while chatting and then disappeared around the tree lined bend of the relatively small side road they found themselves on. "Yes, anything captain," he replied.

Lips pursed, she stared at him for a good while. It was so strange; she looked as meek as a schoolgirl despite being many times older than him, as if she were afraid to ask him but compelled to all the same.

"How did Pontus die?"

Voodoo had left him over the course of the few days by the side of the road. He had grown far too reliant on it, he realized, when he found himself unable to read the reactions of the other moping soldiers at the camp unless he were fully awake and in a relatively high level of energy. Despite all that, it didn't take a goblin rocket scientist to figure out what her motivation was. Hands clasped in front of her, Soraya looked like someone who had spent a long time in mourning but still had a few issues to deal with internally before becoming fully functional again.

There she stood in front of him, patiently waiting no matter how long it took. Not wanting to leave her in suspense any longer, he sighed and told the brief, unfairly short tale and hoped the description wouldn't hit her too hard.

"I was down in the thick of it, right behind him," Navarion explained solemnly. "Unlike the other healers, he waded right into the middle of the battle to heal people right there on the spot. He had no fear." Pausing for Soraya to nod sadly yet in agreement, he tried not to speculate on just how well the two of them had known each other. "He gave his all and fell while keeping others standing. He never flinched or hesitated the whole time."

Regardless of her normal stoicism, there was a slight twinkle in Soraya's eye, and she even wiped her cheek while listening. "Thank you for telling me, Hearthglen," she whispered, gulping visibly despite not being nervous. The two of them lingered for a little longer, not knowing what else to say. A few more other denizens of the city passed them by before she spoke again. "I'm going to return to the officers' barracks now," she informed him formally, suddenly becoming her normal serious self again.

"Yes ma'am," he replied in conformation, trying to do the same.

She paused as if unconvinced by his prompt responses, and gave him that embarrassing concerned look once more. "Since you just now registered as having returned and served in one of the worse battles, you'll have four days leave in order to rest and sort out your thoughts," she explained to him, and he felt a bit of his despair drain out of him already. "Try not to dawdle too much. A good day's rest in a proper bunk would do you some good."

"I understand, captain."

Awkward herself, Soraya waited just a little bit longer before taking a few steps back and turning away from him. She continued to watch him over her shoulder for a bit as if knowing he wouldn't need her advice, and eventually disappeared around the bend, leaving Navarion alone on a side street - which in New Nendis meant a narrow path through the woods where the trees were regular trees instead of hollowed out tree houses. He waited by the intricate shrine in honor of Elune for a long time, not really expecting any sort of inspiration so much as out of respect. Even if he wasn't so religious, it felt as worthy a time as any other to go through the motions. Ritually washing his hands and face at the fountain shrine before moving on, he felt no surprise at the lack of revelation or realization he felt.

But he could at least search for some resolution on his status there and his next move, at least in terms of the next few weeks or so. At the very least, he could keep his mind of of the ache in his chest and off of...her.

Choosing a narrower, more isolated forest path, he let his arms hang idly by his sides and walked at a snail's pace under the exceptionally low canopy in that portion of the city. Just a small bit of the light of dawn broke through the thick canopy, signaling that he could breathe easily knowing that his sulking wouldn't be interrupted; most of the city's population would be asleep by then. The cobbled moonstones of the path felt smooth even through his combat boots, and if he ignored everything other than the endless rows of trees and the soft sound of the breeze above the canopy, he could almost relax.

Almost. But not quite.

Very little tied him down to anything in the world at that point. Prior to the disastrous battle - disastrous from his own personal standpoint, at least - he had something to work towards. Somebody to convince. A plan he could pursue and try to make happen. Now he had nothing; no ultimate goal to look forward to. It was strange, to have such general, roundabout thoughts without actually allowing concepts or images of the person in question to enter into his mind. Repression of his feelings, like so many times before, proved to be the most effective tool he had for avoiding personal tragedy. Maybe if he could keep this up, just pretending that nothing was wrong and that he wasn't a mortal being with feelings and emotions, he could ignore the pain waiting to catch up to him until a time when he had the peace of mind to at least grieve properly. As it was, he felt very little and he knew that he must be in some sort of a state of system shock, largely unable to feel anything. All that meant was that when the reality of all he'd lost finally did hit him, it would absolutely floor him.

Familiarity set in as he shuffled through the inner city forest, winding around narrow paths and retracing his steps. A few times, he almost felt lost despite his sense of déjà vu, and he began to realize that his mind was playing tricks on him. Another of many strange, indescribable sensations: the knowledge that his cognition had become warped and that his sense perception might be fooling him, but the inability to rectify the phenomenon. One of many battles he found himself unwilling to fight; his walking, dream like state provided him yet another means to escape from his feelings and from the reality of his loss and he embraced it fully. Shambling like a senior citizen, Navarion practically floated through the forest for an inordinate amount of time, unable to sleep but unable to face his own thoughts either. A sharp, dry burning in the back of his throat stung him, and what normally would have sent him flying into a panic over his own willpower and proclivity toward rash decision making instead proved to be a blissful distraction. Let him taste the ash, he thought, until he could ignore his thirst no more.

At every step of the way, the light wave from his foot hitting the ground was felt all the way up into his tongue, reminding him of just how far he had to go in taming the vice that dwelled within him. The first of several branches almost brushed against the top of his now lopsided Mohawk, giving him pause as he tried to gain his bearings for just a second. Everything around him looked beautiful, mocking him in its serenity, but also familiar. A little bit too familiar.

Enraptured by the creeping sense of events already played out and numb from fear of his own emotions, Navarion didn't even notice the presence of somebody following him until he had wandered in laps around one of the city's many patches of green and purple woodlands at least three times. The canopy hung much lower and the tree trunks were much narrower since nothing lived there except for wisps and other usual inhabitants of the enchanted Kaldorei forests. The even narrower, winding paths brought him out of view of anybody who may have still been awake at that hour, and that made it easier to sense the presence nearby even when the spirits remained unusually quiet.

Just around the bend, a lone figure waited for him, apparently having expected him to pass through. All alone in the inner city woods, she wore an intricate, light green, shin-length gown and held a bottle in her hands. The thistle colored braid spilling out over her bosom and that same periwinkle face informed him of who it was before he even drew close enough to make out the details of the welcoming smile she wore, and he could already feel the cold emptiness jingle around inside his hollow heart as even the sign of a dear friend failed to arouse anything inside.

He paused, surprised by his own lack of response or any inkling at all of how to react. Astariel just stood there, waiting for him to continue walking until they came face to face. Her attire was far more revealing than what felt like her natural style, almost like she was trying to be someone else. It seemed fake. It wasn't her. The bottle, especially, didn't match her persona; she never drank even when Tammie pressured her and he felt confused by the sight.

Suddenly cold for real, he hugged his chest when he found himself before her, the gap having been closed far too quickly for him to formulate a response to things he wasn't even sure she'd say. Looking him up and down, she stayed quiet for a little while longer. She appeared tired as well, but looked good regardless, in a way he wasn't used to. Astariel always dressed so conservatively that even the sight of her wrist or ankle teased him despite it not being her fault and him having been committed before. His heart hurt when his inner monologue produced the thought 'before' and he tried to blot the inappropriate thoughts out of his mind and ignore how strongly the sight of her bare shins and forearms affected him. One hand on her hip and the other gripping the bottle of some clear liquid, her posture already made him feel like she was much more mature and alluring than she already had been before and she hadn't even opened her mouth yet.

"Hey...it's been a while," she started, sounding like she was trying to be as friendly and comforting as possible.

At first, he didn't notice her lips move when he heard the words and he began to worry that he'd become delirious in his melancholy stupor. That panic, however, grounded him in reality and he realized that his blurred over vision had likely blinded him to it. She looked at him as if expecting an answer, confirming that he had indeed heard her speak and wasn't to the point of depression-induced auditory hallucinations at least.

"Yes...yes it has," he forced himself to mumble, feeling his tongue burn at the strain of using it to speak. His nostrils burned as well as if a tonic had been waved in front of his face but just out of his reach.

She continued to look him over, speaking slowly in a way that made him sure Captain Soraya had told her everything. Grateful for the gentleness, Navarion didn't interrupt the silence, waiting for Astariel to speak in a tone that hinted at a very well concealed sense of concern. "I'm happy to have you back here. I heard about how rough the campaign was for you guys." Her words were so casual that it almost felt soothing to listen to her voice, were it not for the topic at hand. Her voice was...so soothing. He snorted in disappointment when she stopped speaking; if she noticed, she didn't show it. "I'm sorry to hear about...Pontus," she sighed, pausing in a strange way at the end.

A miniature heart attack nearly took him until he realized she hadn't intended to open the fresh wound. Guilt overtook him for ever doubting here thereafter; surely, one such as her, who had lost her parents, would no better than to open such a topic so soon. Nodding in affirmation, he found himself finally losing his voice when he attempted to answer her. As if on cue, the bottle raised before his face magically, dancing before him of its own accord as Astariel stood back nonchalantly, ignoring the odd happening before her. Drinking the cooling liquid freely, Navarion felt his parched throat moisturized and his thirst momentarily quenched as the nectar of life renewed him.

"He fell while helping others to stand...had he the choice, I don't think...he would have gone out any other way," Navarion replied, shocked at how lucid his own answer had been. For some reason Astariel squinted her eyes and leaned forward as if she hadn't heard him, and he began to wonder if she was exceptionally tired or hadn't quite been paying attention. Shrugging it off, he tried to find something else to say in order to steer the conversation elsewhere. "You're out here awfully late...did the post war celebrations really go on for that long?" he asked, feeling as if he'd pronounced the words even more clearly after another sip from a bottle.

A slight buzz tingled between his eyes and he missed the expression she made in reaction to his sentence. Her silver eyes flickered in an odd way, but her words grabbed his attention with such force that vision wasn't even necessary anymore.

"Yes, they went on for a while. The others were waiting for you and Zhenya to come back."

Pain. Physical pain twisted inside of him as some muscle spasmed somewhere at the sound of a sentence he realized he had been a stupid fool to think he could avoid hearing. Soraya had claimed that she'd informed the others of what had happened but that apparently didn't change what Astariel had decided to tell him; her complete candid honesty in the fact that, indeed, the circle of friends had been waiting for both him and his now lost lover didn't feel blameworthy but it hurt nonetheless.

"Y-you...what?"

Throwing his world temporarily upside down, Astariel continued to speak as if it wasn't the big deal that it actually was. "It was a grand old time, to be honest. There was a small parade and a number of buffets happening at the restaurants and bistros in town. I'm sure Zhenya would have enjoyed it." So sincere did Astariel's expression look that it absolutely confounded him, confusing him as all hell.

A knife stabbed into his heart as the memories came flooding back onto him. The crook of his right arm hung in the air but the nerve endings twitched as if a weight had been pressed into it; for a split second he thought he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a head with one and a half horns resting against his arm before he realized he was still there, in the woods with Astariel, standing upright and empty handed. Despite knowing that his panic must have showed, she didn't react, continuing to look up at him as though they were having a normal conversation.

"She...would...yes," he mumbled, confusion taking over as he tried to understand what Astariel meant. "Were she still with us...she would have...oh, Loa." Hacking on the dryness of his throat again, he drank the liquid greedily when the bottle somehow found its way to his lips once more, ignoring the fact that it burned on the way down just as it burned to leave his throat dry, providing no actual respite from anything.

Cocking her head to the side, Astariel looked legitimately confused even in his blurred vision. "Were she still with us...what does that mean, Navarion?" she asked curiously. "You've all returned from the war trail; certainly Zhenya is just waiting at the barracks or some place. Mightn't we find her at the appropriate ancient of war?"

Awe mixed with heart wrenching pain as he fought himself with every ounce of himself, using every particle of willpower he possessed, to force himself to think about other things, to take his mind off of the gaping wound in his chest, even if it meant ignoring his friend in front of him for a second while silently collecting his thoughts. Reeling, he failed and began to speculate as to how Astariel could be talking in such a way. Captain Soraya had told her...right? Didn't she already know?

Apparently noticing something was wrong at last, Astariel stepped forward and placed her free hand on his shoulder. Her touch made his heart race in a way that was both physically and emotionally uncomfortable, and he drank even more from the floating bottle in order to dull his senses. "What's wrong, Navarion? Is Zhenya hurt?" she asked, using that name again that tore him apart inside every time he heard it out loud.

"Astra," he managed to stammer, feeling the dizziness again as he strained to talk before she had the chance to continue. "Zhenya...she...isn't hurt," he tried to explain, finding a different kind of burn behind his eyes when he mistakenly uttered her name out loud.

Not getting the point and upsetting him for the first time during their friendship, Astariel pushed a little further, showing a great deal of concern but not understanding. "Well, that isn't so bad then! Where is she?"

For a few seconds, he stood motionless, his pulse racing in every blood vessel of his body. Pounding into his skull, his blood pressure refused to grant him any reprieve, threatening to even become more intense if he didn't seek some sort of release. He fought...so hard, but failed to keep it all in, and found himself bleeding out his heart as the heavy breathing came. As if to calm him, the bottle raised to his lips again, and he became very aware of the fact that his hands were still empty as it did. The drink failed to numb him enough, and he found his mouth opening and closing but no sound coming out. Even when he gave in and tried to tell her everything, to vent what he had tried to hide, he found his voice hitching in his throat and the anger burning at his eyes when he couldn't. Falling off the edge, he leaned forward and pushed the empty bottle away, bracing himself against her smaller frame for both physical and emotional support.

For the first time in the week or however long it had been, he cried. When he held Zhenya's dying body in his arms he didn't cry, he couldn't cry, and almost couldn't feel. But when Astariel pushed and prompted him to confess what he thought she was supposed to have known, he broke down completely, clinging to her for closeness as if he had been alone and adrift as sea. Consolation was easy in coming as she hugged him back, sensing that something was wrong as the first of his tears finally fell.

"She didn't make it...oh Goddess, Astra, she didn't make it," he rambled, sobbing into her shoulder in the process despite being much taller than her.

Thick, choked sobs echoed only in their immediate area, and Astariel held onto him, letting him muffle the sound into her shoulder. "What do you mean? They said casualties are low; I assumed she would have been fine!"

"Captain Soraya was supposed to tell you what happened," he cried, hiccuping and almost hyperventilating as he tried to ramble, cry and breathe all at the same time. "I tried to save her...but he held me back...until I...and she..." Unable to finish his sentence, he instead buring his face into her hair and rested his cheek against her temple, desperate for anything to cling to.

"Oh, by the night!" Astariel gasped quietly, rubbing Navarion's back in the process. "I had no idea! Oh, I'm so, so sorry; I know that feeling," she told him, her voice echoing as if it were far away. Her tone seemed unusually stoic, as if she had contained the sadness he was sure she must have felt as well.

"It's not your fault...it's not...but it's mine...I tried." The voice sounded like his but the inane words made no sense, and he began to feel a sort of disconnect from his own body. "I don't know what to do...we were planning...and now...no more...I have nothing left," he mumbled incoherently, forgetting what he wanted to say the moment he started talking. Holding on to Astariel for dear life, he tried to flush out images of two golden eyes watching him as they faded, threatening to rip his heart from his chest.

As if truly feeling how much support he needed, Astariel held on to him, refusing to let go even for a second. Strained and stiff as he was, she managed to tuck her head beneat his chin such that he could feel her soft breaths on his chest. She reached up and tried to wrap her arms around his neck, pulling him down to her.

"You do have something left, Navarion," she whispered into his long, elven ear, using a voice so sweet and gentle that he wanted to believe anything it told him. "I'll always be here for you."

She pressed into him to the point where he could feel her heartbeat against his, but something was wrong. This felt wrong. His knees became weak from sorrow, pain and something else as he let her hold him, almost knocking her over in the process. For a split second he tried to straighten up and push away from her, panicking at the sudden closeness he had once fantasizes about illicitly, overwhelmed by the flood of longing and separation from multiple conflicting angles. He tried to shake his head no, but he felt her thumb slide around the base of his long, elven ears to prevent him from doing so.

His mind hazy, he reached one hand out and grabbed ahold of a tree for balance, not wanting to balance in her arms any longer. Images of silver and gold mixed together in the most disorienting fashion and he screamed internally, unable to bear it any longer. He sobbed a woman's name, unsure of who it was. He told her 'no' in the bluntest way his drunken mouth could muster and she told him yes. He felt her pull him toward the edge of the road but without force, and he found himself unable to push her away from him.

Lightly, ever so lightly, claw like fingernails slipped from the side of his head up to his scalp. They ran through his mane, dragging across the hide of his head in a way that felt so intoxicating that it felt wrong and betraying. Pressing herself into him again, she caught him, and instead of struggling after his fall he let himself sink to the bottom if one of the two was there. Mesmerized but guilty by the way her fingers danced across his scalp and down the back of his neck, he acquiesced and resolved to let whoever it was win.

She pulled him off the main pathway, almost stumbling from his weight as he proved too inebriated to walk straight after not having had anything to drink for many months.

"I can be what you want, Navarion," a woman whispered in his ear, her identity mixed up and unclear to him.

Tired...so very tired. Tired, broken and tortured, but this time not by his own doing. A flash of silver directly in front of him replaced the gold and he felt the self loathing of a cheater once more, after so many years. Time held still for far too long, trapping him in the enchanted woods before he was overtaken and blacked out.


	22. Ash to Ash

**A/N: though not absolutely necessary to understand this chapter - as I feel the most relevant background info is included - there is a prequel of sorts to some of the flashbacks toward the end. On my DeviantArt account, a four part short story called "Madrieda's Lament" explains the bit about the shining star below.**

There were no dust motes floating around them in the room. No particles or light debris to be seen, nothing that would signify a lack of movement or air flow. Breathing in felt fresh and cool, ruling out the possibility of mustiness or stillness. Circulation seemed well enough, and even the temperature should have felt relaxing.

There was a naturally grown window in the naturally grown room. The tarp covering it almost completely blotted out the view of the outside, but low down near the bottom of the sill the starlight could just barely be seen. It was neither claustrophobic nor exposed, and the ethereal light from a Kalimdor night lit up the floor and broke the darkness. Openness seemed sufficient, and the atmosphere should have felt welcoming.

The tarp over the bedroom door hung loose. It was finely woven and looked new, carrying within it a sense of homeliness, a place where the occupant cared about the living space. It wafted in the naturally circulated air somewhat but didn't wave, and while the color of the silk fabric was vibrant it didn't actually shimmer annoyingly or reflect the starlight. Privacy seemed satisfactory, and the scene should have felt calm.

The hardwood of the ceiling, walls and floors had been naturally grown out into the shape of a small apartment on behalf of the city. Nature surrounded them entirely, and even the few leaves and fungi growing out of the walls increased the exquisite visage in such a colorful way. The bed, nightstand, wardrobe and chairs were all naturally grown out of the surface of the floor and walls, perfectly emulating the naturalistic lifestyle of the Kaldorei. Beauty was the only appropriate word that could describe the hollowed out apartment, and the mood should have felt good.

Everything was fine on the outside. The entire environment was serene, neatly kept and peaceful. The romance novels on the selves were arranged, the clothes on top of the dresser were folded and the paintings on the wall only added to the pleasant aura via their eye catching pastels. Everything was perfect. Everything.

Except for the inside.

The cool temperature in the room chilled him to the core, causing a slight numbness and sluggishness to settle in to his knuckles. The air felt thick, moist and strangling and with every slight movement of his head, every heave of his chest as he breathed up and down, it felt like the oxygen was trying to smother him.

The atmosphere felt intruding and imposing, invading every iota of his being as the weight of a thousand burdens pressed on his shoulders to the point of dislocation. Even his ultravision couldn't save him from the darkness, a total absence of color and joy that swallowed him whole and stole away any sense of direction he may have once possessed.

The scene filled him with a sense of dread as the silence echoed in his ears to the degree that he feared he might go deaf. An eerie sense of panic like the calm before the storm pricked up every hair follicle on the back of his neck, and the feeling of being watched stripped him bare. Completely exposed, he had nowhere to turn and no place to hide as he was forced to face an interlocutor he couldn't even detect.

The mood sank so low in his chest that he felt as if a hole would open up inside his diaphragm, tearing downwards throughout his innards and finally dragging him into the soil beneath the treehouse, forming an impromptu shallow grave. A terse ugliness punctuated such an end, depriving him even of the solace he may have gained from simply rolling over and dying on the spot.

Desperate, he continued to sit on the edge of the bed, staring down at his unlaced combat boots and ruffled clothes. The sheet hung off the edge haphazardly, still a mess from the events before they'd passed out. Every muscle in his body tensed as he searched for a means of escape. That he'd even managed to get dressed without standing up was a feat to be proud of in and of itself. Of course, he knew that in all likelihood he wouldn't be able to dress himself without creating at least a small amount of noise; not when experiencing a hangover like his. A valiant effort, true, but futile nonetheless.

There were only about three feet between him and the door; so close to escape, and yet so far. By the time she'd stirred and woken up, his heart rate had increased to the point of delirium, causing him to pause in the middle of his preparations. The bed was small and cozy, terrifying him via its evocation of closeness and intimacy and providing absolutely no space between them. Trapped and frozen, he found his head sinking toward the floor, unsure of what to do to rectify the situation or, even easier, just flee from it.

Slowly, ever so slowly, his head began to rotate. It had taken him half an hour to get surreptitiously dressed, and he'd even impressed himself with his patience and resolve to run away from his problems. But once the other occupant of the bed had awoken, he faltered, unable to move while seen. For sure she'd noticed him before even sitting up, but when she remained beneath the covers he could lie to himself; he could pretend. Robbed of his self delusion, he had nothing, and felt absolutely helpless.

Under the quilt, he could see the shape of her crossed ankles lying out before her. The mere thought of being under her gaze felt like a kick to the teeth, yet some unseen force compelled him to continue rotating his head, to tilt and angle it up slightly, to search for signs of life in spite of his renewed desire to be alone. Compelled, controlled, he traced the creases and folds in the blanket until the tos of her shins emerged. Periwinkle forearms wrapped over them, hugging both knees to her chest tightly as she wove herself into a ball. Perhaps she wished she could just implode, or turn in on herself until the disappeared into nothing. He knew that he certainly felt that way.

Torn and utterly destroyed, he somehow managed to find the willpower within himself to continue angling his head upward, meeting the face whose lower half hid behind her forearms along with her knees. It was as if she didn't want to be seen either, but they were both sharing a space to small and intimate that they had no choice. The bridge of her nose was mostly hidden as well, concealing the great majority of her face from his view in a sad mercy to them both.

But he didn't need to see the lower half of her face. Two long, feral eyebrows arched downward into a disappointed, devastated, nearly traumatized frown were enough. Those eyebrows spoke volumes of the negativity floating between them, reverberating with the words of the conversation they'd just had but that neither of them even remembered anymore. Quiet, empty, meaningless words of too shattered people realizing what they'd done. Her eyes strained as they looked forward, the silver glow twinkling in consternation as she appeared to draw as much of a blank as to what they could say as he was. They were both stuck in the same rut, unable to find a way out and certainly unable to help each other, encourage each other, even look at each other.

Crushed and pulverized by the ominous sense of foreboding about the path they'd both stumbled down irreversibly, he dug deep in order to find words. Not the right words; just words. Any words that could break the excruciating silence. Any words that could bring some semblance of sense to what had happened, even if they couldn't repair the irreversible damage done to the two of them.

Taking a deep breath, Navarion forced himself to close his eyes so as to avoid Astariel's face and spoke.

"You didn't tell me you're a virgin."

His words bounced off of every solid surface in the room, flying back at him in a thunderous roar that pounded on his disoriented skull. Regret set in, sinking its talons into his flesh as he asked himself why he had even opened his mouth. No good could possibly come from such an utterance, and yet it escaped regardless of the fact that he himself hadn't.

She winced, hugging her knees even closer into her bosom as she folded in on herself. Although her eyes squinted just a little bit more, her soul didn't appear to become any more crushed than it already had been; rather, she merely appeared to be hurt and completely underwhelmed by his response. Beyond what he'd already discerned from her demeanor, he couldn't discern anything else about her current state; just the sense of disappointment and despair.

Making no movement whatsoever, she spoke into her forearms, pulling her head back just a hair so that her lips weren't pressed into the skin anymore.

"Was," she corrected him blankly, breathing a little heavier for a few seconds.

Ricocheting off of every surface inside his mind, the words caused him to feel dizzy as he already had so many times. So much pressure mounted on him from every angle that he began to sweat. The leather and chainmail of his dilapidated armor began not only to feel dirty from the long campaign and the wallowing at a campsite outside the city gates, but also constricting, strangling even, as he felt the walls close in on him just a little bit more. Pinpricks attacked his pores as his hide began to itch all over, screaming at him loud and clear to get out.

As much as her words had pierced his guilty yet confused heart, they had also provided him the impetus he needed to run away; just run away from yet another problem, if anything to figure out what exactly it was.

He stood, feeling the dizziness of his hangover and his sore, overworked muscles at he did so. The tragically beautiful statue remained on her bed, staring at the mark of her lost womanhood on the sheets as she continued to hide most of herself either under the blanket or behind her arms. She made no effort to even look at him as he straightened up and faced the opposite wall, obviously feeling just as low as he was for reasons he would never, ever comprehend.

"I think I need to...think," he mumbled apologetically, finding that his lips had turned to mush. Everything he did or could say felt stupid and worthless, but he had already lost control of his rambling over a day ago. "I'm sorry, I just need to go for a while." More than anything, he wanted to convince her, to gain her approval to leave, to make her understand that it was absolutely necessary. He had no idea why, but it felt imperative that he make her understand even when he did not.

But she offered no response. Not even a cursory glance, not even a nod; he couldn't even be entirely sure she had heard him or not. For all he knew, she may not have been aware that he was still standing there, looking down at her. It was as if she were even more lost than him, which was entirely believable given what he knew about her situation. Try as he might, he couldn't quite identify with her so much as take note of her traumatized countenance, measure it against the few times he'd seen similar reactions and hope it would provide him the opportunity to leave.

"I'm sorry," he apologized again while moving her tarp aside and stepping out of the bedroom.

One more quick look over his shoulder confirmed that she hadn't even acknowledged his presence beyond her one word utterance, and he was - technically - free to go. Shouldn't he be happy? After all, it's what he wanted, isn't it?

Her apartment was small, like those of all bachelorettes and bachelors in night elven cities; most unmarried people either lived in communal housing or with family until they married, even if they were centuries old, and the few who didn't weren't afforded a great amount of space. The single room that comprised both her kitchen and living room was sparsely furnished and he didn't have much trouble locating what few belongings he had carried on him when she...intercepted him the day before. In any other situation, with any other woman, sneaking out of the bedroom to make a hasty retreat would have been a tense, strenuous exercise in stealth; it had been many years since he'd lived that lifestyle, but the memories remained.

And yet he didn't need to do that here; not with her. A part of him knew that she would make no effort to even look up and see if he was still there. Feeling short of breath as his chest cavity was compressed unnaturally, he matted down his mane, bucked his belt properly and swiftly exited the naturally grown and naturally parting and closing door of vines and leaves that provided privacy for each apartment in the large treehouse. Any and all sound was muffled between the apartments and the world outside, and the silence as he walked out and wound his way down the ramp brought him both relief and agony.

Midnight had already fallen outside; the middle of the waking hours for most inhabitants of Kaldorei settlements. If Navarion's instincts were correct, he'd still be on a brief leave of absence at that time; nobody would be looking for him and be had nowhere in particular he had to be. Wonderful, horrible freedom stood before him, beckoning its hand as he shuffled down the narrow streets between the trees of the residential neighborhood as fast as he could manage without drawing attention to himself. Handfuls of locals either wandered about while on their daily business or, for those who weren't at work at that particular time, went for pleasant strolls and shared local gossip. The calmness and wholesomeness both teased and pained him, yet the anonymity the throngs of people he passed by granted to him were not unappreciated.

Every footstep sent shockwaves of pain up into his cranium, reminding him of how long he'd been sober for and how quickly all his efforts could be for naught. In a way, it was comforting; on the one hand, he wanted to think, to focus, and try to figure out exactly what had happened. On the other hand, a part of him screamed to just turn tail and run, to move toward the horizon and keep walking until his feet bled. So many problems had he faced during his life, during other military campaigns, and yet he found himself so woefully unprepared to navigate the battles of mortal emotions.

Wedging himself past a group of native night elven merchants hauling sacks of precious gems from Winterspring, he struggled to focus his thoughts at least on putting one foot in front of the other. Maybe then, he could recall something.

The cobblestone on the road that led him through a minor, secondary bazaar were the same off white color as those he'd walked over when entering the wood the day before. In an open air market, the air pressure was low and the noise level was high, but since his head drooped down and he only stared at the ground, he could almost retrace the mental footsteps he'd taken before.

Those eyes...two sterling silver eyes had been peering at him. Watching him. Waiting for him. Perhaps he had known it all along, but had ignored it due to circumstance. He had been observed, and in his emotionally weakened state his voodoo had been disrupted enough such that he wouldn't have sensed the spirits' calls. He tried to ignore the pulling sensation in his peripheral vision as it threatened to bring memories of the day before into the present and invade the rows of trade goods wholesalers with trees from the inner city forest. Not now, not yet, not in public, he thought to himself. Never had he experienced anything like any sort of anxiety attack, but as the first one in his life crept up on him, he knew exactly what it was; the way his throat burned and his stomach turned were unmistakeable. Identifying it and analyzing it for what it was brought him back down somewhat, and by the time he'd left the trade district entirely and entered another quiet neighborhood, he'd managed to regain some semblance of control over his racing pulse.

Headache pounding, he tried to wrap his head around the events. Astariel had seduced him; of that, he was sure. It wasn't even his insecurity forcing him to blame what had happened on somebody else. She moved too well and too exact for a regular forty year old virgin. What she'd done must have been considered, pondered over...planned? Guilt transformed into self loathing at the accusatory thought, and as he walked by a small local family near a corner of treehouses, he fought to stop from outwardly wincing and making himself look like a crazy person. How could be suspect Astariel of...spying on him, observing him and...and Zhenya...to seduce him at one point? It felt hurtful and cruel to think of someone so innocent and naive that way. Or at least, someone who he'd assumed was innocent and naive. She knew all the right movements; she'd known how to run her fingers through his mane, around his ear just as she'd seen Zhenya doing, but even through his drunken stupor he'd been able to remember how it had been to bed her. She practically dragged him inside...trapped him...she made it happen. At that last thought, he actually had to cup his palm around his forehead as he reeled. She'd...orchestrated what happened. Soraya told Astariel about Zhenya's death; she'd known. But beyond what she'd observed from Zhenya, Astariel had learned very little; her inexperience...was...obvious.

Mental concepts of words caught in his psyche as if he couldn't even bear to think them, and Navarion hurried his pace until he could see the high watchtower marking the main front gate of New Nendis on the southern wall. He needed to get out. To get away. There were too many memories flooding him all at once.

All around him, people went about their usually nightly business and didn't even notice him. Their muddled voices and conversations melded into one mess of white noise in his brain and he let it wash over him, hoping to grasp onto anything to stave off the images in his head. Grey swirls tried to creep in on the sides of his field of vision but he blinked them away, not yet prepared for the clarity his voodoo might bring were he to tap into it now. Quickly enough, he found himself passing through the gate and outside the high city walls, pushing his way past merchants, travelers, mounts and attendees at the southern waystation. As quiet and peaceful the dense forest just outside the high stone walls were, he found it increasingly difficult to fight off the pictures and ideas lingering just at the front of his mind, threatening them with their cursed truth.

Once he was out of view of any of the traveler's and onto a small path in the woods off the main commercial road, he braced himself on a tree and tried to catch his breath. This didn't make sense, what he was doing. He was fine. He was alone. He was alive. Nothing was wrong with him and all and nobody had hurt him. There was no reason for his heart to be pounding so hard, for his chest to be heaving so much, for his head to be spinning so fast.

The ethereal blue of the wisps rotating around tree branches were hypnotic, and he stared at it in order to preoccupy himself. Stepping off the little side path in the woods and sitting in the underbrush, Navarion found some semblance of logical coherence in his brain after much consternation and wisp watching. If the grey swirls and lack of color wouldn't leave him be, at least he could be confident in his sanity and a measure of remaining confidence when it came to him.

Yet the whispers of the spirits were barely even audible, and those that were weren't comprehensible. Instead he found himself left to his own self rather than the visions that his connection to the spirit world brought him; and that, more than anything, threatened him with the truth.

You should calm down, that familiar faraway voice whispered to him, though the black phantom didn't make itself visible to him.

"I am calm," he retorted quietly, speaking aloud to a presence nobody else would have detected. "You should leave me alone."

Though he saw nothing, he knew that it was watching him, neither haughty nor sympathetic; just as the Loa always were. I don't want to be here any more than you want me here, it stated obviously. But your disturbance reaches beyond your own plane. Your kind are as much a part of my world as you are of your own.

"What do you want from me?" Navarion practically hissed. He struggled to retain control of his temper; the Loa wouldn't react since a mortal couldn't threaten it, but he'd gain nothing by turning his anger onto it either.

For an split second, the shadow hunter could have sworn that he saw the outline of the shadow person, but it was only a figment of his imagination; he was still the only visible being along with the wisps. Regardless, the living darkness made its gaze felt, always cold and examining; blunt and to the point. It deserved credit for that.

Wrong question, it responded, not intending to be irritating but failing at that hardcore. Ask yourself, it corrected him.

Dancing until they left optic trails across his vision, the wisps hoved into Navarion's view on the corporeal plane. A strange sight indeed, to see forest spirits of the balance working in tandem with what amounted to a voodoo specter. Both were more or less ghosts no matter which races tended to focus religious belief on them; and in Navarion's case, the races of both of his respective parents happened to be intwined with the beings of light and being of darkness drifting around him.

His heart opened up and he began to see not what the two different varieties of ghosts wanted him to see, but what his own soul needed to see. Far in his past - far by the standards of a man just over three decades old - shone a star high in the north sky; a star not all could see, but who the survivors of a grove of twenty five women and their descendants could never miss. High among the other heroines of the past, it twinkled at him brightly, bidding him welcome as he felt the flood of emotions overtake him and his sense of restraint.

"Madrieda..." Navarion murmured while looking up through the canopy and reaching for the star.

She was the first woman you fell in love with, wasn't she, the dark being asked. At first Navarion bristled, but then he realized that despite what his father's race believed, the Loa weren't actual deities; they were not omniscient.

Heart aching, he realized how odd he must look sitting in the bushes and raising his hands toward a star billions of miles away, and tried to compose himself. "Yes...Goddess light her path..." he murmured to himself more than anything, feeling the feminine sort of bracelet he wore on his wrist. "She left me this...it's all anybody has to remember her in this world. She didn't stay in contact with the other women of my mother's grove...all of her family and even her friends died during the Sundering. She kept her colleagues at a distance. I was the only one she had...until..."

Until she made a conscious choice to spare you even more heartache, the darkness interrupted. The lack of color pulsated as the words floated through the Navarion's mind, and he could vaguely see the outline of the darkness take its familiar humanoid shape. Do you regret what happened?

Blinking away the added pain, Navarion sniffled and found the warmth without even needing to try. So generous, so kind, it at least breathed a little bit of life into the husk that was slowly losing its unique personhood.

"Do you mean our relationship?" he asked, his voice clearer.

Yes.

"No. Never. Not for one minute. Not for one second." He spoke with the utmost confidence, especially knowing that Madrieda had felt the same about him just before her death, according to her colleagues when he visited her grave for a belated eulogy. "It hurt to lose her, but I...will..." He found himself unable to finish the sentence, but his point had been made.

Out of nowhere, the darkness turned the discussion in a much more serious direction again. Do you regret being with Zhenya? it asked him, knocking him to the floor once more. So much did it hurt that Navarion felt physical pain just to listen to the question.

"How...how could I...no, never," he sighed, his depression compressing his lungs again.

Not even the bad times?

"Never."

An eerie silence fell between them such that the light breeze above the canopy could be heard again. The lump in Navarion's throat only increased his sense of entrapment as he knew the voice was about to tell him something he didn't want to hear.

If you have no regrets, it began cautiously, then you'll need to move on-

"No!" he hissed harsh and fast. "Don't talk to me like that! Don't even try to suggest - don't!" Every vein in his body pounded with anger and stubborn rejection after having nearly calmed down just a moment before. The sudden change increased his nausea, and he doubled over in pain while trying to collect himself.

The wisps rotated around the surrounding tree branches just a little bit more slowly, and he could tell that his outburst had disturbed them as much as it had himself. More stoic than the small forest spirits, the Loa only continued to stare at him, acting out of instinct more than choice despite its vast sentient intelligence. It would never become upset or bothered, and it wasn't exactly impatient, but he knew that if tested it would abandon him at the first chance its mysterious nature allowed it to do so.

I have told you all that I can. There is no further wisdom I can offer you. The tone of the Loa's voice sounded final, and despite his anger Navarion found himself in a slight panic at the thought of it disappearing on him so soon. Whatever the case, you know the source of your disturbance. And you know that, at some point, you'll have to reconcile those, it claimed ominously while pointing to the twin bracelets on Navarion's wrist - one from Madrieda and one from Astariel.

And just like that, the wisps floated away, quickly darkening and disappearing into the woods faster than he could have hoped to chase them. Despite his ultravision, the woods seemed unusually dark in their absence, and he scrambled when he realized that the unnatural darkness had dissipated into the natural darkness as well.

"Wait!" he cried out in desperation, rising to his feet despite the futility of trying to chase an incorporeal spirit. "This doesn't help me to know anything at all! I'm still in the same spot!" Already his voice had become shrill and piercing, a sign of his emotional wall coming down in the wake of the discussion. "I didn't even get a chance to say a proper goodbye - what good are you! You could have tried something, just one moment with her! Just one last look!"

His angered yet weakened voice encoded in the nearby trees as he stumbled, foolishly thinking that if he changed locations he could better grab the dark being's attention for one last second. And foolishly thinking that it would make a difference, or that the being would necessarily have any more insight that he himself already did. Zig zagging through the trees, he tried to find some sort of a connection after having felt so close, only to realize that he'd been deluding himself.

"What can I do?" he shouted into a clearing he'd stumbled upon, hoping for anyone other than the living would hear him. "I tried to protect myself so much that I can't even feel the pain properly anymore! I hurt but I don't bleed! I feel her loss, but I can't accept it!" Trying anything to grab the attention of the spirit world, he even pulled out one of his voodoo wards and shook it, listening to the cursed turtle shell rattle against the bundle of sticks but hearing no signs that his begging for any sort of connection had been heard.

Spinning around, he realized that he'd wandered back to a place he'd been before. Silent and serene, the clearing filled him with a cruel, futile hope even as the ashes began to fall around him. Running so fast that he tripped in the dirt and had to pick himself back up, Navarion literally crawled the rest of the way over to the moonwell as he frantically sought some sort of connection to what he'd lost. Maybe then, if he could trick himself into thinking that he'd somehow given an appropriate farewell, he could ignore the pain of knowing that every woman he'd ever grown close to had either been irreversibly traumatized or simply died.

Another Lang of nausea hit him and he banged his knee into the stone rim of the moonwell when he stumbled. Scrabbling to hold on and even ignoring his backpack sliding off his shoulder and his gun falling from its holster, he silently cursed the wisps, the Loa and himself as he leaned over the edge. The water was still pure even as cinders floated into material existence and costed everything else around him. That clear, holy water promised a million and one things as he tried to lean even closer to the surface, ignoring the light headed feeling as his heart raced far more quickly than was normal for a healthy young man his age.

Searching past the glimmers and reflections of the few stars that broke out from the canopy, Navarion tried to look for the one he'd forced himself not to think about since the calamitous skirmish out in the valley near the coastline. Only the light of the stars mixed with his own reflection, and he squinted his eyes in attempt to search for gold. If he could only find those two lovely golden eyes, eyes that belied so much withheld tenderness, he could finally let her go. His hide burned as more embers fell, but he ignored it in hope that he'd find what he was looking for soon enough. Then he could tell Zhenya what he hadn't had the time, coherence or emotional fortitude to when he held that dying half of her dismembered body in his arms. He could tell her there was nothing to forgive for her often cruel treatment of him; that he understood she must have experienced a great deal of disrespect and betrayal in her life to cause her to become so prickly and distant; that he would never forget her as long as he lived; he could tell her all that he felt but had been too stubborn or too angry at her to tell her during life.

No longer concerned for ideas such as dignity and saving face, he whimpered but could not find it in him to cry. His walls had come down, buthe had run from his feelings for so long that he didn't even know how to grieve properly when he saw nothing in the surface of the moonwell. There was no ghostly apparition of Zhenya bidding him farewell, no presence he could sense watching over him to settle their accounts, not even a flash of gold in the moonwell to reassure him that her memory somehow lived on if he clung to the cheap locket he'd pilfered from her duffel bag at the wrecked makeshift camp out on the coast. Even in his own mind, her image came up incomplete as he tried to force himself to think of her and pretend he could see her there where they'd committed their base acts before entering the city proper half a year before. Her features were blurry and nondestinct, and her neon yellow mixed in with thistle just as the complexion of her face wavered between azure and periwinkle. Long ears materialized from long horns and back again, tearing his heart in two pieces as he couldn't even let himself cry, couldn't even figure out who he felt he wished he could cry for.

To his horror, the holy water of the moonwell darkened as one too many cinders fell into it and dissolved. What little light he could sense was looted out as everything was covered in the aftermath of the foul burning, and even Madrieda's star abandoned him for the first time since he'd stood by the grave of his recently deceased first flame. Panicked, desperate and without any recourse, he opened his mouth to scream but found that the parched dryness prevented any sound from escaping his ravenous throat. Just before the moonwell was consumed entirely by the pollution, Navarion could have sworn that he saw the violet-blue tint of his own face brighten and turn green, and the stench of whiskey filled his nostrils as his deprived mouth began to water.

Defeated and lost, he tumbled backward from the moonwell and fell, kicking up a cloud of cooling embers as the grey color conquered all around him. Slow, methodical and unforgiving, the results of all beauty in his life burning out and dying as soon as he tried to partake in it covered the world, leaving nothing but death in its wake. Finally accepting that he had no recourse but surrender, he gave up and sank into his own self pity and the ashes consumed him.


	23. Cutting Off

All the way until his last day of leave, Navarion had managed to avoid seeing Astariel. He'd spent most of his time either sleeping or sulking in his bunk in the third floor of one of the barracks for male irregular soldiers, turning his back to the rest of the room and facing the wall even when beneath the covers. Thankfully, nobody had interrupted his self imposed isolation and he'd often lie in bed until he felt so hungry that he had to get up just to nourish himself. A handful of times, he'd descended the winding ramp to sneak out behind the weapon and armor warehouses and drink spiked moon juice until he passed out, using the foul intoxicant as a sort of tonic for his shattered psyche. After a few days of his miserable self administered therapy, he even felt enough like a person again to bathe and take a trip to the laundromat, always hurrying back to hide in the male barracks inside their ancient of war as quickly as he could.

A measure of guilt remained within him at how strongly he'd tried to dodge Astariel, but it was only one more grievance against himself as he tried to mend the wounds of his repressed, denied feelings. There was so much he wished he could tell her, so many things he wished he could make her understand. Though he hadn't been able to mourn Zhenya properly and dealt with the passing of one of the steadiest women he'd ever been with, he could at least think her name without feeling like he'd experience another nervous breakdown. And it was her name that he knew he had to tell Astariel.

They couldn't be together, he wanted to explain to her. Not if he truly did care for her, and had cared for her even while having simultaneously cared for Zhenya in his own complicated way. If anything, the passing of yet another woman he cared about was proof of his dogmatic belief: it was in his nature to hurt women. The most lovely, wonderful creation on all of Azeroth and Draenor, the female species, either ended up emotionally scarred after being with him or lost their lives. In his mind, that belief was as confirmed and true as the law of gravity; to deny it any more would be sheer stupidity. For hours on end, he'd ball up his fists around his blanket and wait out the muscle spasms that arose from how tense he'd become when repressing the images of Zhenya dying in his arms, and refusing to acknowledge how permanently damaged he'd been by losing someone who, as dysfunctional as she was, he had hoped to stay with for the long term. If muscle spasms were all he had to deal with, then so be it; anything other than having to accept the fact that, for the second time in his life, a woman he had truly cared about had died, and he had been powerless to do anything about it.

Eventually, he'd have to face her; but not yet. Not on that day. Breathing deeply beneath the covers, Navarion realized that he would have to rise not simply from hunger but from a sense of duty: he would have to return to his patrols again for a period of time. How long, he did not quite remember, but even with the silithid threat more or less ended he would still have a few weeks, maybe even a few months left on the contract he'd signed at the mercenary camp near Hyjal. Ever since the three main military columns had returned victorious after the extermination campaign, the regular enlisted soldiers had been transferring out by the dozens and even a few of the locally garrisoned troops rotated to other locations. The irregular troops were no longer needed once that foreign investors and traveling merchants felt a resounding boost in confidence in both the safety and lucrid nature of the port of New Nendis, and only a dozen plus a few more of the mercenary contracts were being renewed now that a great many of them were expiring. Though Azeroth knew a peace that anyone older than Navarion claimed had been unknown just a few decades ago, there were still wars to stop and campaigns to join, and no grumbling was heard as enlisted troops and mercenaries alike left the city to take part in whatever other armed conflicts had popped up in other parts of the world.

But for him, that time hadn't come quite yet. Again thankful for the privacy, Navarion dressed himself in plainclothes in the entirely empty floor, planning to seek out Sergeant Fyndir. So many troop reductions had taken place that he might not even be assigned to the same unit anymore; considering how much time he'd spent hiding in his bunk, it was no wonder that he hadn't seen Captain Soraya again since she'd dragged him back to the city and thus had no idea what he'd even be doing. With a heavy sigh, he decided to face the world outside sober and ventured out into the twilight for the first time in an amount of days his mind was too hazy to count.

Noisy by elven standards, the commotion and traffic of the military quarter helped preoccupy his mind. When given so much sensory overload to deal with, his brain couldn't also process the stinging emptiness inside of him, and were it not for the intense dryness of his throat he might even feel halfway normal.

It didn't take him a great amount of time to reach the treehouse hovels of the officers. Technically an administrative and logistics official, Fyndir wasn't difficult to find; the hovel he shared with his two counterparts was near the front of the three rows of treehouse offices and cartography rooms for easy access. His sword hung on a rack outside to signal that he was at work, and as Navarion descended the steps he could already see the grizzled male sentinel leaning back in his chair, examining one of the many documents always spread out on his desk. Much of Fyndir's lower body was concealed by the desk despite it being a simple thing on four long pegs, and the older man looked relaxed enough. A nod of his long, feral eyebrows signaled that the younger man had received permission to enter.

"Sergeant Fyndir, sir," Navarion grunted while saluting and stepping forward toward the desk. "I've come in order to inquire about my patrol schedule during the upcoming...holy shit."

From far away, nothing seemed awry about the weathered old sergeant; his appearance was as impeccable as any inspection ready unit. It wasn't until the shadow hunter approached that he noticed the entirety of the sergeant's right leg had been amputated from above the knee all the way down.

"Shit happens," Fyndir grunted right back in that voice of his that sounded even deeper than an orc's. He waved his hand dismissively while doing so, as if the loss of most of one of his limbs didn't even bother him that much. "Those reavers aren't a walk in the park, despite what Soraya claims," he chucked inexplicably.

Losing himself for a moment at the mention of the silithid reavers, Navarion tightened his jaw and gulped. "No...they certainly aren't a walk in the...ahem. I'm sorry for the loss."

"Naw, it's in the past. No sense in agonizing over what you can't change." At that, Navarion fell silent, unable to respond and for a few seconds unable to breathe, and so Fyndir continued. "Besides...I'm so done. I've carried this rock for too long."

"What do you mean, sir?" Navarion asked curiously.

"I'm done trying to fight the matriarchy. I'm the sole male officer above the rank of captain in all of the east coast of the continent. I get paid less, I'm given less responsibility but I put forth the same effort. Indid my time, I served, but I need to go home."

As logical as it sounded, it was also odd to hear such statements come from an officer in the mosty prestigious, highly trained fighting force on Azeroth. "And you're sure you'll be comfortable returning to civilian life, sir?" Navarion asked again.

Nodding via his long eyebrows again, Fyndir seemed absolutely certain. "My wife retired due to a disability on the battlefield, and I'll follow her in retirement just as I did back when she trained me. Our pensions aren't much, but that's what we raised kids for." There was a measure of rare humor to Fyndir's voice, and he seemed to be in unusually high spirits all things considered. "You're here for your patrol schedule, right?" he asked while shuffling papers, like he had literally just forgotten what Navarion had mentioned earlier.

"That is correct, sir," the half night elf confirmed, glad to have transitioned to lighter topics of conversation. "To be honest, I was wondering if I could request a transfer since so many troops have left already."

Surprised at first, Fyndir eyed him curiously as if something were awry. "Your unit no longer exists, Hearthglen; when Brigadier General Lamia was promoted, so was Commander Soraya."

"Commander? That's remarkable news!" Navarion exclaimed before feeling a big guilty at possibly making Fyndir feel bad. Clearing his throat, he tried to just play it off. "When did all this happen?"

"Just the other day, actually. On her way out, Marshall Silviel prompted Brigadier General Lamia to the vacant post of head of the military branch of government here at New Nendis. She had been injured rather badly considering her age, and her distinction and experience are well known; it's a better position for her. Since the position of army commander had then been made vacant by Lamia's promotion, Soraya was the agreed upon candidate. The unit you served in under her was small but apparently she made a good impression on the Marshall, and the Brigadier General pushed for her as well."

"That's good news for them both; it's nice to see that at least some of us found something positive in all this." Navarion's tone sounded a little bit more melancholy than he had intended, and Fyndir pursed his lips for a moment while eyeballing the younger man suspiciously. Not wanting to give him an opening to ask questions of his own, Navarion tried to steer the topic back. "Sergeant, may I ask as to the whereabouts of Thresha and Calil now that our unit has been dissolved?"

Not showing mercy so much as showing an everlasting focus on the job, Fyndir nodded and opened up a little handheld notebook that had been buried under more lists and maps. "Yes. And I believed they were mentioned at our reshuffling meeting the other day." Fyndir's right thigh, or what was left of it, shifted with a surprising dexterity as he sought a more comfortable position on his chair; it was as if he'd always had a short, jointless limb there and used it effectively for what it was. "They've both been split up. Calil is now serving under Captain Ironwood II, and Thresha is stuck guarding the weapons storage facility during the day shift."

"Ouch."

"Thresha is a real trooper, she understands that all jobs are significant. Plus she gets overtime pay for working during the daytime, and I heard she took no issue with it." For another second Fyndir thumbed through his small book, frowning when he happened upon another tidbit. "Dmitri didn't make it."

Already pulverized beyond recognition, Navarion's morale and spirits couldn't descend any lower. Leaning against the doorframe despite facing a commanding officer, he did feel the sense of loss, and Fyndir didn't berate him for standing at ease. "How did that happen?" he asked.

"Same way it happened to the other fifty or so casualties: either he didn't receive battlefield healing in time, or his wounds were so deep that a resurrection spell wouldn't have worked." Fyndir closed his book and sat back in his chair, slightly organizing his papers before him as if he were finished. "Tammie took the news well and will be leaving with Dmitri's personal belongings to the Exodar in a month and a few weeks; their spiritual beliefs help them to accept death surprisingly well, those draenei."

Another spike of pain stabbed into Navarion's chest, and he found himself flexing his theatrical skills once again in order to suppress his natural inclination to whimper. "Yes, sir," he mumbled as respectfully as he could, stiffening up somewhat.

If Fyndir noticed, then he gave no indication, as was his general habit. A particular list on a crumpled sheet of paper caught his eye, and he held it up nonchalantly as if reviewing information he needed to double check. "You actually haven't been assigned yet, Hearthglen. Like most of the irregulars as well as the support classes, you're in a situation where you'll end up being sort of filler for units in need of another party member."

"Does it mention there how much time I have left exactly?" Navarion asked, pretending as if he hadn't been planning to ask that all along. "I can't exactly recall at the moment."

"Hmm...it says here your deployment will be complete in six weeks. After that, it's doubtful that your contract will be renewed."

"That won't be a problem, sergeant. We all need to go home after giving up so much of ourselves, eventually."

Looking up at him, Fyndir's eyes carried a fast, sudden weariness that hadn't been present before. "Aye...how true that is," the deep voiced full elf rumbled as if he'd just ridden a sabre straight from Tanaris all the way to Winterspring.

For a second, silence fell over the two of them as the conversation skipped a beat. Two broken men shared a moment, one of them sitting and missing a part of his body, the other standing and missing a part of his soul. Most likely the two of them could have told each other more, perhaps lamented together for what they'd lost with a group of other survivors over a round of (non-alcoholic) drinks. But for whatever reason, neither of them were in the mood to allow any more walls to come down, and Navarion was able to take solace in the fact that, like himself, Fyndir preferred to repress his feelings rather than cope with them.

"Sergeant...is it too late to request an assignment outside the city? Alongside the highway patrols?"

After continuing to stare at his desk for a moment, Fyndir stirred and sifted through a few more lists. Melancholy or no, he did take his work seriously and didn't simply give a knee jerk answer without checking to see what was possible. "We have a three person highway patrol that will be leaving in twenty one hours. You'd actually have to spent six and a half weeks out, and since your contract would be expired you'd only receive half pay, but in cash, for that half week."

"I will do my best to protect those highways in my last weeks on duty, sir," the half elf replied eagerly.

"And you're prepared to mobilize in less than a day?"

"Yes sir."

Pursing his lips again, Fyndir grunted and nodded, scribbling on and then signing s sheet that looked like a semi-official missive. "You need to take this to the huntress lodge right away, and rest up as much as you can," the one and a half legged sergeant explained throughout his scribbling. "Gear up and be at the eastern gate at 2000 hours sharp tomorrow evening." When he held out the missive for Navarion to take, he didn't let go, and the two men both held still for a second while Fyndir gave the shadow hunter a hard look. "Get yourself cleaned up before tomorrow, Hearthglen. No alcohol on patrol."

The hair of Navarion's mane pricked up on the back of his neck as he wondered how the sergeant would have known. Every time he'd run away to drink himself to sleep, Navarion had made sure to hide behind a tool shed or in between the warehouses in the most isolated part of the military quarter. Admission of how miserable and desperate his situation had become stung a little more than he had expected even when it was entirely internal. The thought that someone had spied on him binge drinking until he passed out behind a shed like a homeless person felt both embarrassing and intruding at the same time.

"Yes, sir," he replied flatly, waiting for Fyndir to let go of the missive before he took it and tucked it away.

Outside, it was a relatively short walk to the huntress lodge. A place to see and be seen, numerous huntresses donned similar plate armor to what Navarion's mother once wore despite being off duty. They tended to congregate in the lodge to brag, gossip and network, and nobody took notice of the half breed guy as he walked over to a desk whose two attendants had strayed. By the time he got their attention, handed over the missive and submitted his ID card to take the empty patrol slot, it had been nearly fifteen minutes of mostly waiting and trying to get and keep their attention.

Urgency drove him, and the moment they confirmed his spot for the next morning, he left. He would only have a matter of hours to find Astariel.

Navigation among the throngs of people without pushing anybody had been a daunting task months ago when he'd first arrived. After so much time spent winding around shoppers, workers and revelers, he'd worked it into a science and quickly found himself headed for the little residential neighborhood dominated by wide treehouses inhabited by numerous singles and couples who were either just married or whose children had moved out. Despite the days spent wallowing in his own misery and wondering if he'd have anybody to remember him when he died the way Madrieda and Zhenya had him, Navarion had barely spent any of his sober hours considering what he would tell Astariel once he did find her. There was so much he felt he ought to tell her, and yet it all remained as an amorphous blob of concepts inside his head. Forcing it to take shape as words only caused the ideas to slip in between his fingers and escape him. Imaging how she would react when he tried to explain that even if they were great friends, even if they might have flirted before, even if he was technically single now, even after the...incident they'd shared...to explain to her that the still couldn't be any more than friends...

A light migraine attacked his head, and he winced and slowed his pace through the neighborhood as he searched for her apartment. The mere thought of how the words even felt in his mind hurt. It hurt him to tell her it wouldn't work out and he was supposed to be the one to give the 'let's just be friends' speech. How would she feel upon being told that, then? After he knew she'd been admiring him for so long? Deep inside his stomach, he could feel the bile churning as if to punish him for his cruelty that now almost seemed to rival Zhenya's. Oh, how they had been an apt match for one another, more than either of them had realized. Too little, too late, he reminded himself.

When he found himself outside of Astariel's apartment, he didn't pause for long. If he hadn't figured out what he'd tell her on the walk over there, then standing like a crazy person in front of the treehouse complex she lived in wouldn't magically yield any ideas, either. It only took him an unfairly short half a minute to ascend to the second floor and find himself before the vegetation forming her door, his pulse already racing.

Inside, he could hear shuffling in reaction to his presence, and the spirits whispered to him that she'd seen him the moment he'd turned onto that street. That worried him; she'd obviously been expecting him, and in his drunken stupor he'd forgotten how many days had even passed since that fateful day. That meant that the whole time...had she really just been waiting for him, stressed out and wondering where he'd run to?

The vegetation rustled and naturally parted of its own accord, and then the tarp forming the second layer was swept away by a soft periwinkle hand. Her natural glowing and floating runestones, used by most Kaldorei as a safer light source than candles and one that was less bright due to their night sight, had all been extinguished. Every object in her apartment looked the same as when he'd left, as if nothing had even been moved an inch. She wore a disheveled bathrobe over an ankle length dress, and that pretty thistle colored hair looked like it had simply been tied back in a rough ponytail after not having been combed for a few days. Her ears drooped low and she had dark circles under her eyes, but her expression was a little too controlled. Just like him, she looked like a mess.

The two of them stood there and stared at each other for a moment, her in her empty apartment and he in the empty anteroom between the other apartments on that floor of the enormous tree. Both of them were in control of their breathing and were there any uninformed observers, they would likely have assumed the two of them to simply be friends who needed to get some extra sleep. Blank but vaguely questioning eyes looked up into his as silver met silver, and he could tell that she was waiting for him to initiate a discussion that made them both anxious.

Searching through his stupid brain to find something, anything to begin the conversation with, he inhaled deeply and held his breath for a second before trying to just get to the point. "Hey...Astra. I just came by to talk. And, you know...tell you goodbye."

Her expression didn't change despite the fact that he knew there must be a hundred questions floating around in her head. Just a few days ago, she'd dragged him into her apartment after getting him drunk, lost her virginity to him and then had what was certainly the tensest discussion of his life and probably hers before he disappeared on her for a few nights. He was quite surprised that she didn't either wrap her arms around him or slap him; he wouldn't have been shocked by either reaction.

Instead, she pursed her lips and looked him over for a second. "What do you mean?" she asked him, giving no ground and keeping him under the searing spotlight.

Grunting and rubbing the back of his neck, he tried to find the right words - words that would magically make news that sounded hurtful even to him somehow not hurt. Words that would magically make news that was complicated come out simple. Words that wouldn't make him feel like he was being an asshole even when he'd convinced himself that he was.

"Well...ah...I'm going to be patrolling the highways for the next six weeks or so," he started shyly. Her reaction should have comforted him - she didn't scream or shout - but he could sense that she was only wearing a mask.

"So you've been off preparing?" she asked, her tone curt and cautious, but her spirit hopeful.

A pang of self loathing worked its was through him. The more hopeful she became, the more it would hurt when he finally did just come out and tell her the truth. Just like all of their interactions up until then; just like how Zorena had warned him. Why couldn't he just be blunt for a brief time and get it over with? Why did his heart hurt so much at the thought of hers hurting as well? This wasn't him. This wasn't Navarion Hearthglen. He was an asshole who hurts women. As much as he disliked to admit it, that admission of his own nature could be what pushed him through a painful discussion.

"Well, yeah, I...no. No. That isn't true. I haven't been off preparing."

She leaned against the door frame, even letting her cheek rest on the naturally shared wood. For a few seconds she stared off into nothing beside him before meeting his eyes again, and he could already sense that she was worried. "You ran out and disappeared. I didn't know what happened to you. Why?" Concern was laced in her tone and her expression, and he wondered how she viewed the two of them now.

"I was just...a bit confused, about what happened between us. I needed to figure out some things...but I'm here now." When she only continued to look up at him as if expecting more, he tried to work his way to the point despite his heart trying to hold him back. "Astra...I'm going to be on patrol for the next six weeks-"

"When will you be deployed?"

Her interruption gave him pause and he cheated, asking the spirits what was going on in her head. They abandoned him, whether due to disapproval of his intentions or his own confusion disrupting his connection to their world, he did not know. He was left on his own, once again realizing how much he'd used his voodoo as a crutch. "Well...in the evening, after waking up. There isn't even a full day left. There isn't much time left to say goodbye."

Lifting her face from the frame but continuing to hide part of her body behind it, Astariel looked a bit more defensive. "Why don't you step inside? If I won't get to see you again for six weeks, then this will be our last chance," she suggested, not finishing her sentence. The fact that she avoided his gaze while talking told him more than her words, and he knew she was taking what was some kind of gamble in her mind.

The closer he let her get, and the more of a chance she believed she had, the more it would hurt them both. He'd done her wrong by letting it go this far. Swallowing a painful lump in his throat, he steeled his nerve and shook his head.

"Astra...it's not just six weeks." His pulse accelerated so much that he nearly felt dizzy, but he pushed on, knowing that he had to do it for both of them. "I won't be coming back."

Surprisingly there was no real echo in the anteroom or her apartment, but his words reverberated nonetheless. Astariel froze, statuesque as she displayed no outward reaction to a statement he knew must have hurt her as much as it did him. Her eyes met his for only a fraction of a second before falling downcast again, but there was no shock within her that he could detect. She must have expected or at least feared this.

Shutting her eyes tight, she appeared to be doing some sort of breathing exercise. "S-so you're going to work as a highway patrolman...forever?" she asked quietly, but he knew she didn't believe her own suggestion.

This wasn't benefitting either of them. Trying his hardest to suppress any sort of feeling, he forced himself to be more direct. "I'm going to finish my deployment for the next six weeks. And then I'm leaving New Nendis. I'm not coming back," he said, his voice not as stoic as he wished it had been.

For a moment she only shook her head, as if thinking she could change his mind. "That doesn't make any sense," she retorted weakly. "Everything you need is here. All your responsibilities outside are cut; you're free to be with anybody you want." Her words cut him in a way he hadn't expected, and he almost felt a twinge of resentment at her callous brushing over of Zhenya's death. "You have every reason to stay," she said, a slight sound of the hurt breaking into her voice at the end of the sentence.

Before he caught himself he almost found his hands reaching out to grip her shoulders and grab her attention toward his seriousness, but he stopped himsef when he realized that she might take the feeling of his touch the wrong way. He had to end this before he ripped himself in half; half of him screaming at himself in anger for what he was doing, the other half screaming in panic for him to finish and run far, far away where he could never hurt anybody again. "Astra...I'm moving on. That decision was already made-"

"Without me?"

"-and it will work out best for everybody."

"There is no everybody," she replied, the strength in her voice dampened by the waver. "This is about you and me. Everything is okay now; you can stay here with me. Nobody can tell you not to."

Pausing when he feared she'd become heated, he felt his own ears droop low. "Look...I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for the way things turned out."

"Turned out?"

"But this won't work."

"What do you mean by 'this'?"

Raising his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose but then deciding against it, he tried to remain unconflicted as possible, not wanting to give her any more hoe for what simply couldn't be. "Astra, I'm no good for you, alright?"

"That's not for you to decide!"

"And whatever ideas you might have about who I am or what I'm like, I can tell you that good women like you shouldn't take interest in people like me."

"Take interest?" she asked in sincere confusion. "I gave you a gift I'll never be able to give any man again and you call that taking interest?"

He winced at her referral to their sleeping together as a gift. Don't hook up with virgins; those were the exact words he'd told the younger recruits. And there he was, trying to sort out the mess he'd warned others about. "Please don't make this any harder-"

"I wasn't the one who started giving gifts, you know!" she sputtered, and his fears of the conversation getting out of hand came true. "The first time we had a real conversation, you gave me a piece of your jewelry."

"You asked me for it," he replied, immediately cursing himself for taking the bait.

"You could have said no - we didn't even know each other! What would you have cared?"

"Astra, I'm sorry-"

"You told me I could visit your mother! Why would you even say something like that?"

"Just listen-"

"Why did you accept my bracelet?" Her voice hadn't become loud but it was shrill and accusatory, as if everything he had hoped she wouldn't say was coming out of her mouth. Hope. Like he'd given her. How apt. "Why did you spend six months leading me along like this? Why did you send me so many signals if you weren't interested?"

"Please, don't-"

"I saw the way you'd check out any inch of skin I showed. I saw the reaction on your face when I'd laugh. That wasn't my imagination; my friends saw it, too! Zorena saw it!"

"Because..." His words caught in his throat and even when she paused and gave him an angrily expectant look, he found himself unable to speak. Everything she had accused him of was true and he knew it. Because I'm an asshole, he thought to himself, unable to tell her out loud.

"If you didn't want anything more, why didn't you say something! You had opportunities for months and months!"

"I don't know!"

"And if you're free now, why do you have to leave?!"

"Because every woman I've been with ends up scarred for life!" he shouted right back, suddenly finding the strength to answer. "Emotionally traumatized and hating me forever...or just dead. Zhenya wasn't the first."

"I can help you change!" she retorted pleadingly, truly convincing herself of the impossible.

"No...Astra, no," he replied, his voice weak but this time, he believed in what he said 100%. "Men don't change, especially not men like me." He tried to reach for her and she slapped his hand as hard as her dainty wrists would allow her to. "You have to listen to me...if you try to pursue this further, I will hurt you. The closer we get, the more it will hurt. The more I try to prevent it, the worse it will be. I do care about you, Astra-"

"Oh, now you tell me!"

"-and it's because I do that I have to leave. Sometimes caring about someone means admitting that you aren't the right one for them." She shook her head furiously, the first tears painting those adorable cheeks. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. And you haven't done anything wrong."

"I don't need you to tell me that!" she whined at him, refusing to make eye contact again.

"I'm no good for you, okay!" he urged her, surprised that she cringed when he leaned in closer to her. "I'm no good. That's the truth. I'm a dog and I'm not going to change. Please listen to me-"

In the middle of his sentence, she pulled the sleeve of her bathrobe up to reveal the cheap beaded bracelet he'd given to her while patrolling the top of the western wall so many months before. Before he even had a chance to finish, she snagged the string holding it all together and pulled until it snapped. The beads slid off in a flash, clattering on the floor and sending out echoes he was sure must have been partly imagined. Every single one of them bounced and fell apart from one another, an unintentional but fitting representation of them both.

"Fine! Then don't even come back!" she whimpered, flinging the old string at him after failing to find a heavier object nearby. "Don't ever contact me, don't ever contact my friends, don't ever show me your face again!"

Silently, he watched her step back so quickly that she almost tripped and fell over, yanking the tarp in front of her apartment. Responding to the distress of the occuapant, the vegetative door shut,mother leaves, vines and roots forming an impenetrable living wall that would simply regrow if he tried to rip it away. Uneven footsteps patterned away as he heard her heading for her bedroom and out of earshot, making no move to pen the door again for another round.

Wounded yet numb, Navarion wandered out and onto the street, his head spinning from what he'd done. Ambling through the neighborhood, he held his breath to the point where he nearly passed out and waited until he could find an isolated street whose trees hadn't yet been hollowed out for occupants before he exhaled.

He'd done what he'd intended to do. It hurt; he deserved it. She didn't, but the guilt he'd carry was punishment enough for what he'd done. Coupled with the loss of Zhenya and the realization that, once again, he had nothing left in the world, it felt like a befitting end for him, even if he had perhaps gotten off easy. The inevitable thoughts of why it had been Zhenya to fall and not him, why it had been Astariel to be disappointed and not him, of a million other possibilities swept over him as he slumped in a narrow side street where he belonged.

Dryness itching at his throat, he knew it was only a matter of time before he had to face horrifying sobriety for a month and a half. Perhaps then, when the monotony of the trail had numbed his mind, he could transform his heart into the ice box that would help protect anyone else from being hurt by him, and him from having to accept all the pain he'd caused.


	24. Denial

The few stray silithids had failed to actually dig a mound or lay a nest; they were, by and large, neutralized and a non threat to traveler's and locals alike. Their hives and mounds entirely destroyed and their egg laying castes eradicated, the month following the celebrations of the main military columns was spent by the various highway patrols clearing out silithid strays, random bandits and the handful of remaining corrupt wildlife.

The last of the silithids in Azshara, a reaver, met its end snapping its putrid insectoid jaws and flapping its useless wings in vain. It writhed around in the ground, unable to react as fast arms and legs gripped its back and braced it for the sickle blade coming down onto its neck. With a disgusting snap and splurt, the head twisted off, marking the official end of the insectoid menace in night elf lands, though it would go unsung.

The blood oozed out of its carapace as the shadow of a shadow hunter loomed over it, towering and victorious without any sense of joy. Dying anonymously in the grass, the reaver was a testament to the ultimate futility of the attempt in the long term. Futility not just for the bugs, but for the soldiers who had fought as well.

Life goes on. People move on. That's the job. Die so civilians can live, and then fade into the background unseen so as not to give the impression of a militant society. Rinse and repeat.

Hours became days and sleep followed work followed sleep. The days became weeks and a sort of Short Vigil formed as every one of the hours, days and weeks melded into each other. The shadow hunter became totally reliant on whatever captain had been assigned to the highway patrol for timekeeping, and had no idea how much or how little time was left before returning to New Nendis. All he knew was a sense of duty and the hollow numbness that was so much safer than actual conscious thought.

Too much threatened his troubled mind. Images of a blue haired sentinel melded into images of a blue skinned paladin in his mind, shape shifting like the dark clouds of night above. At times his imagination would mix with his vision and he'd have to pinch or slap himself to prevent the onset of hallucinations in the middle of the job. Never before had he suffered issues within his own mind as his father had once described to him; his thoughts had always been lucid and clear. For the first time in his life, he actually felt unstable, even if he'd managed to hide it from all those around him.

The trotting of Zhenya's elekk - now his - often droned in his ears so much that he felt like beating the mount out behind a tree for a while, just to relieve the tension in the muscles of his back, scare it into stepping more carefully and release the unlabelable emotions swirling around inside. Always, he had been the cool one, the calm one, the collected and removed one. That's who he was; that's how he wanted to be. But this confusion...it might have been inherited, but it didn't feel like him. Those hours, days and weeks on the highway, nodding to polite travelers and merchants and cleaning up whatever scum they encountered passed as if he were watching a stranger operate his own body. The lack of responsibility was as relaxing as the lack of self control was horrifying.

Finally, the carapace stopped bleeding; the last silithid outside of their decaying hives in the far, far away southwestern end of the continent twitched for the last time. One of the sentinels on the patrol, a younger woman unlike the elder two pureblooded night elves in the unit, enjoyed watching the life drain from the last bug's compound eyes. Eventually her silvers met those of the half blood, followed by a nod of respect for a comrade.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" she asked, motioning toward his sickle blade and the dead silithid.

A face that was once so lively and animated stared back at her, taking time to process the friendly question as if it were a foreign language. A heart that once beat with the rhythms of the world and the passion of one who loved waking up alive every single day held still inside its ice box, unable to feel any sort of warmth, whether positive or negative. Fear had driven it to that place, where it would never have to worry about guilt or pain again.

"I don't feel anything."

No rudeness or even brusqueness made its way into his tone, but his lack of reaction was apparent even to himself. Perhaps the thinking he'd made a joke, his comrade smirked to herself and followed him back to the mounts, reporting to the captain on the end of the seemingly non-threatening menace that would soon be a blip on the radar even in the books of local county historians.

Navarion sat on the edge of the bunk that had been his for more than half a year. After all that had taken place, the bunk that had once belonged to Dmitri seemed shockingly empty. Even the light snoring of the furbolg shaman echoed in the small, circular room of the third story of their barracks, puncutating the loneliness that the place represented. He'd missed Tammie's final departure along with Dmitri's personal affects by just over one day, as if to emphasize the fact that all his attempts to form bonds with others came to fruition too little, too late.

He'd already been officially discharged that afternoon. Paid in cash, his earnings from the six and a half weeks on patrol had been counted, handed over to him and then promptly passed on to a Steamwheedle Cartel representative for safe transshipment to the specific branch of the cartel bank his family used. Since his bunk had a new berry bunch growing above it signifying that it was considered vacant by nature, he had little other reason to remain sitting there. Sergeant Fyndir had returned to his also handicapped wife so their children could take care of them in their last days, and Navarion had already bid farewell to the tiny handful of locals he felt he needed to.

All of that had been performed without encountering Astariel, for which he was thankful. After all he had done, he felt too ashamed to even face her and didn't even know what he could possibly say. He'd ruined her life as much as the dual death of her parents, he was sure of it, all because he hadn't been honest enough just to tell her up front that despite their feelings for each other, he didn't feel himself a compatible partner for a good girl like her. And now, that good girl had been hurt in the way he most feared for the ones he cared about: by a bad boy who let her hopes build up only to allow them to fall.

Overwhelmed by it all, he closed his eyes tight until the ice box froze over again, numbing him inside a protective shell where he could hide from the world. He shut them closed, and he held them closed as he descended the ramp all the way to the ground floor of the ancient of war, opening them only when he heard the footsteps of more residual irregulars he would have to step around. Two contingents of irregulars were retained by Brigadier General Lamia for various purposes. The older irregulars were used to train the regular enlisted Kaldorei and pass on their battlefield skills, while the younger irregulars were sent for jobs the regulars couldn't perform due to ego, such as guarding warehouses or arranging weapons and armor stockpiles. Or simply mopping up buildings in the military quarter, as one happy tauren was doing without complaint as Navarion walked down the narrow road leading out of the district. Mercenary camps found slim pickings after the anti-silithid campaign had come to an end, and fewer soldiers of fortune were being accepted into the sparse but numerous fighters' halls.

Aside from the meeting with Lamia herself, he'd been able to keep his shell around him. At the huntress lodge she'd come to personally how to him and a number of others that had been discharged that day, ever gracious even to the mercenaries scorned yet depended on by so many of the regulars. It was an honor for the woman who was now the head of one of the three branches of night elven government (military, clergy and naturalist) in New Nendis to personally bid him farewell and even remember his name, and the nameless sentinel's guarding the lodge most assuredly felt jealous. Having sustained injuries at the disastrous battle and being even more ancient than Navarion's mother, Lamia had begun walking with a cane that bore a blade inside that would mechanically pop out at the push of a button, different yet similar to his own weapon. Beloved by the people and especially the soldiers, she had been rather kind to deliver goodbyes herself and it almost warmed Navarion's heart. Ragnar, who had gone from being a mercenary to Lamia's regular bodyguard due to his tribe's closeness to the Kaldorei, had been the next to last person Navarion felt he could bear to bid farewell to personally, and after returning to the bunk that was once his he knew there was only one person left.

That person happened to be waiting for him at the end of the road leading out of the military quarter, wearing the off duty uniform of an army commander and flanked by the typical young sentinel women that tended to follow higher ranking officers around everywhere. Solemn and respectful but not melancholy, Soraya waited for him to reach her before rotating and walking next to him.

"It's the least I could do to see you out," the former captain and current commander told him as she walked by his side down the road that lead through the bazaar and on to the road heading out the southern gate.

"Thank you, capt...commander," he replied, still getting used to the change in titles.

Smiling congenially, there was a marked relaxation in her tone. "Commander is for the next time our paths cross...for today, just Soraya is acceptable, she sighed, looking weary as if the responsibility weighed heavily in her shoulders.

"Soraya it is," he replied, surprising himself by how at ease he sounded.

Side by side, the two of them stared toward the ground as they marched, oblivious to the market commotion around them on the main southern road. The high city walls came into view in between the tall trees forming the upper levels of the city, like a formerly impenetrable border representing the duty that had bound him in that space for so long.

Off in the distance, three familiar faces Navarion didn't have the heart to speak to acted out the most curious of scenes. Sitting in plainclothes on a public patch of grass between the treeshops of two crafts women, Calil crossed his legs in front of him and hunched over, listening closely to Maya II as she recounted what must have been a tale of crushing silithids during the campaign. Apparently bothered by Calil's closeness to his new captain, Thresha sat so close to him that she was basically leaning on him, pretending to listen as she tried to subtly distract him from the story.

"That's recent," Soraya piped up, noticing where Navarion had been looking.

"What's that?"

"Thresha and Calil. Their behavior together is recent," she repeated while pointing toward the group even more subtly. "She's warmed up to him in a new way."

As if to punctuate the change, Maya II laughed loudly at one of her own jokes, garnering a chuckle from Calil and no response from Thresha, who surreptitiously tried to slide her arm behind his back and lean on it.

"That's quite a change," Navarion offered, trying to force himself to take interest but not quite succeeding.

"It started when Calil was transferred under Maya," Soraya explained as they walked out of sight of the trio and began passing more shops catering to travelers near the city wall proper. "He began hanging out with her and her group of friends on rotation from New Auberdine. Thresha remained posted at a warehouse for some time before being transferred to wall patrol and seeing Calil around Maya all the time drove her nuts."

"The tribulations of young affection," Navarion remarked absentmindedly, quickly realizing he may have indirectly poked similar wounds on both Soraya and himself.

Somber and still looking at the ground, her reply was slow and sounded almost tired. "I suppose so."

Ignoring her two followers, Navarion and Soraya continued to walk until they'd passed beneath the gate, stopping just outside and moving off the main road in order to allow others to pass. Merchants from other night elven cities and beyond traveled through carrying their wares, and people simply passing through to reach the port added to the mix. All they had fought for had been secured, leaving only the emptiness of soldiers who had to ask themselves what came next when the fighting was done.

Turning to face him, Soraya held a bit more of that Kaldorei command in her voice and demeanor. In spite of what she'd lost herself, she kept her head held high and her posture befitting of a warrior of the night. "Nobody ever wants the ones they left behind in this life to linger, waiting for a reunion that will never come. If we think they'd be any less noble than that, we do them a disservice." For a split second, a sense of softness worked its way into her gaze, and she looked at Navarion much in the way that his sisters might. "Life goes on. And I know that Pontus wouldn't want it any other way. Knowing that is what helps me sleep at day."

Truth evident in her words, he let his guard down momentarily for the sincere advice to make its way through. "Nor would Zhenya," he replied, pausing as he tried to focus his mind enough to speak about the backbreakingly difficult topic. "I only wish I could find that star to light my path."

"You will, Hearthglen. I'm sure of that." Smiling and bowing one last time, Soraya let go of any sadness she had as he bowed back. "May the Goddess lead you to New Nendis once more in the future," she said quietly though without sorrow over a parting friend as she stepped back.

Nodding in response, Navarion moved to one of the multiple stablemistresses outside the main gate, searching for the wyvern he'd received in a trade for Zhenya's elekk. Due to the memories, he found himself unable to ride the tusked mount for more than six weeks and had to give it up for one he felt no connection to. Seeing as how he was leaving for good, it felt befitting that he departed on his flying mount from the city gates instead of the proper flight point.

It only took a minute for him to pay the flightmistress' assistant for caring for the animal and loaded his bags, but Soraya had already left and returned to the city, apparently not having wanted to draw things out. Once atop the bat winged, scorpion tailed, lion headed beast, Navarion turned to take one last look at New Nendis.

High walls enclosed the city, shutting him out of it entirely. Nearly thirty thousand people filled the city by that time, hustling and bustling as they went about their lives and handled their business as parts of a thriving community. For half a year, those walls had signified home to the lone wanderer, a temporary haven after a previously insatiable desire to travel the world fighting for a goal he didn't even know himself. During that time, he met two women who had changed his life irreversibly and vice versa. One was a sinner as guilty as he whom he had hoped, however futile it had been, to tame and maybe even bring home one day; if he had wanted to fight across the world, he got what he had asked for in her demise. The irony was as overhwelming as everything else.

The other was someone totally unexposed to the world, pure and naive if mischevious, and sincere in her care for others. For her good intentions mixed with perhaps a poorly planned execution, her recompense was a heart shattered in a way Navarion had never done before, not even in the wild days of his early twenties. He'd done a terrible wrong to a good woman for no reason, and knew that the only solution was to remove himself from her life entirely and save her from him. Loa know that he didn't need to be spoiling anyone else's life.

Kicking off, he directed the wyvern to charge and soar, using a ramp outside the city walls to gain momentum for his takeoff. Not looking back even one time, he led his mount to fly higher and higher, swiftly moving south and as far away from Azshara as he could.

Watching from below, a number of people soldier and civilian alike recognized the shadow hunter who had supported other troops via his protective and healing spells. There goes a guy who stood in the background to prop up those in the spotlight, some of them remarked, feling a since of gratitude before returning to their normal daily lives. Multiple pairs of eyes all along the ground by the outer wall and even along the watchtower looked first at the unsung hero and then back to their own affairs.

All those pairs except for one.

High up on the southern wall of the city, on a central part untouched by patrols, two silver eyes watched sadly as a man who had filled them with so much hope and so many tears flew away. A wistful heart weakly cried at its owner to reach out for him, no longer caring how futile it all was. Devastated and confused, the thistle haired woman stood frozen in place, her heart pounding painfully at each flap of the wyvern's wings as it moved on.

Careful, almost dainty hoof clops sounded off in the stairwell behind the cloaked, mourning archer, their owner letting them be heard but not loudly enough to startle anyone. The archer displayed no reaction as an older tauren female approached, carrying a small box in one hand and a burlap supply bag in the other. She came to stand next to the enraptured night elf female, looking down at her and wondering a number of questions.

"Astra, I've been looking all over for you!" Zorena exclaimed lightly. "It's been weeks since anybody has seen you at night. Have you been on the day shift or something?"

Showing no emotion at all, Astariel continued to stare off into the distance. Were it not for her occasionally wrinkling nose, one might not even know whether or not she was breathing. "I've taken a short break," she replied flatly.

Trying her best to cheer the night elf up, Zorena kept her tone light as she opened the box. "Well, I was at that one restaurant earlier, the authentic one. I found some of that cuttlefish that you like so much-"

"Oh, please get it away!" Astariel retorted, her voice becoming insistent as she cringed at the sight. "The smell is overwhelming, I just can't take it!" She was quite insistent and almost manic, absolutely appalled by what had been so alluring to her before. It was the most animated she'd been so far, almost drawing her attention away from the southern horizon.

Confused, Zorena stared at her for a moment before deciding that she was being serious. Stuffing it back into the box, Zorena's tone because cautious. "Is everything alright? You always liked cuttlefish, Astra. It's your favorite," she said in a voice laced by suspicion.

The night elf only shook her head, looking rather bothered by the mere presence of the stuff. "No, not anymore. The smell is just so intense, like everything lately. I feel like the city has become a big mess of odors." Although she became a bit more lively when faced with her former favorite food, her answer was strange.

"Oooookay...so if not cuttlefish, what then?"

Pausing, Astariel then quickly came up with a possible replacement. "I keep having these...cravings. Cravings for weird food at random times. Some days I just need some spicy chili crab, then a few hours later I don't care about it anymore. Now I feel like I want rice and lentils for no reason. It's as weird as the stomach bug I got."

Zorena's bovine ears pricked up questioningly. "Stomach bug?" she asked incredulously.

"Yeah...for the past few mornings, I keep waking up sick," Astariel explained. "It's like I vomit after I wake up and then I just need certain types of food at certain times. I hope I didn't catch some sort of weird silithid disease!" she joked with what could almost be described as a hint of a smile, showing good humor at least on some level.

Staring to the point where it was rude, Zorena focused on Astariel until the tauren woman's eyes became even wider than those of the cuttlefish. Revelation dawning, she quickly turned toward the south to watch a man on a wyvern ride off, examining the color of the mane that was only just barely visible at that distance.

In a miniature state of panic, Zorena looked to the sick night elf, then to the wyvern rider, then back to the elf again. The various pieces of information coalesced within the tauren's mind, leaving her stunned into silence as her oblivious friend continued to detail the inexplicable changes she'd noticed in her body and its natural functions over the previous six weeks.


	25. Third

The late afternoon sun beat down moderately on the port city of Ratchet that day, neither scorching nor warming the inhabitants. Business during the slow season carried on as usual, and it was one of the few times that people could actually slow down and smell the roses. Bruisers relaxed a bit, merchants stopped shouting their prices and workers were able to saunter from location to location rather than run all over the place like other times during the year.

Serene and peaceful by the standards of a neutral, cartel run city, Ratchet exuded warmth that could even be felt by the travelers and out of towners. As the noise level remained civilized and the streets remained empty by its standards, the city became almost a quiet and slightly boring place to be around. Mostly goblin architecture dominated the crowded, winding streets packed with shops, houses and even small factories, punctuated by the occasional residential house built in other architectural styles. Beautiful and busy, it signified every bit of the multiracial, non-factional society the cartel had advertised itself as building.

High on the bluffs overlooking the main portion of the coastal settlement below stood a handful of large estates. All of them walled and built on the only flat, tillable land in Ratchet, they were held by families who had contributed significantly to the local flavor of the community. The walls protected their privacy from all but airborne travelers, though all the houses had inner gardens in order to provide shade and cover from passersby. On that particular afternoon, three long-eared people stood in between the trees, watching overhead for a visitor they'd received advanced word of after he'd been sighted over the Crossroads just half a day's travel away.

Hurrying out of the courtyard and onto the main road, the three of them kept an even pace as they followed the path to one of three flight points in Ratchet, all of them developed to handle the large amount of through traffic in the city. One in particular was larger than the others, a tauren-style roost for the wind riders and even the occasional chimaera whose owner needed to remain overnight. Straddling the highest bluffs at one edge, it towered over the main road leading in to the Ratchet city limits from the Barrens, facing a bruiser watchtower on the other side. Much of the bluffs were still undeveloped, and aside from the three estates, only a few shops catering to flying mounts and their owners dotted the high, rocky land formations. By the time the trio had reached the roost, the rider they'd been watching had already landed, checked in the wyvern and signed off that he released it to their care in exchange for vouchers for free rides in the future.

Weary from days of travel through towns he rarely frequented so as to avoid conversations, Navarion had almost succeeded in repressing his boiling emotions and putting on his best casual act. As he walked down the stairs from the upper decks of the roost, his new travel bags - he'd sold his and Zhenya's old bags along the way - suddenly felt very heavy in his shoulders. For the first time in a few years, he was back home...back in Ratchet. But unlike the other times when he'd disappeared on his family for a few years, this time he was finished. Not simply because he'd promised his mother; his wanderlust was over. Not satiated; just beaten down and domesticated. When he exited the roost to face relatives he'd left in the middle of the night for the fourth time, he was so mentally drained that he didn't even worry about whether or not they'd be happy to see him.

As it turned out, he wouldn't have needed to worry anyway. Always forgiving, always happy to see him, the warm reception of his godmother, his sister and their nephew put a small dent in his protective wall as they bestowed upon him a warmth he didn't deserve.

Navarion's sister Sharimara, a giantess of a woman even taller than him, nearly knocked over the Orcish flight point attendant as she forewent the typical elven bow and pulled him into a one armed hug. "Glad to know you aren't too good for your family," she joked, not realizing how deeply her words cut him.

Hiding his true reaction, he half-smiled and hugged her back, and half resisted when she took one of his bags from him. "Come on, don't say that," he replied softly. Almost forgetting that they were blocking the walkway from a pair of gnomish engineers and their goblin colleagues, Navarion stopped to pick up his nearly seven year old nephew, a similarly mixed race child like them. "By the Goddess, you were a toddler the last time I saw you."

"You're different," Venjai remarked as he tried to resist his uncle's newfound affection. "Mom and dad told me you'd bring presents," he added in regard to Navarion's sister Anathil and her husband, Tan'jin.

"Always the privileged only child," Navarion answered while setting Venjai down, somehow finding the ability to let out a short but sincere chuckle.

"Thanil is pregnant again, actually," chimed in Irien, the godmother of Navarion and all his siblings. A pureblooded night elf, Irien stared right into the downcast but now retired mercenary; hers was a scrutinizing if empathetic stare as it always had been, but this time she withheld the usual tongue lashing he'd expect from the tough, industrious Kaldorei. She looked up at him with a mixture of anger but also relief written all over her face, betraying a bond she held with the children as strong as that of the rest of their odd family. "You have a lot to catch up on." Also forgoing a bow - this was crazy aunt Irien, after all - she took him by the arm the way his mother often did and led him down the road toward the estate.

Although the heat wasn't intense enough to rise up off the ground, it did remind him of how early it was for any of his family members to be awake. All of them, even his pureblooded jungle troll father, had adopted a nocturnal lifestyle, sleeping out the hottest hours of the day, and his sister, nephew and godmother had obviously woken up extra early (or stayed up extra late - their sleeping schedules fluctuated when they were on vacation) to receive him.

Though Venjai had always been as soft spoken as his parents, Sharimara and Irien were both considered chatty by elven as well as trollish standards. Regardless, their demeanor as the group trotted down the road toward their estate on the very end of the bluffs felt low key.

"Are you back with us for good, now?" his sister started, never losing her smile or her slightly playful tone.

"Yes, yes, don't worry," he answered a little too fast. "This was the last time on my own. I'm done." His own words rang in his ears, and a mixture of feelings threatened to rumble upward until he shoved them back down into the pit of his stomach.

Tugging on his arm to signal her approval, Irien seemed unusually subdued. "Your family will always be here for you, even when you were sneaking out and traveling the world. I know you needed to work something out of your system, but now that you're back we might not let you go again." For once, her tone lacked the firmness it usually did. For the first time, Irien almost sounded a bit sentimental in reaction to his return, and it felt awkward. Navarion began to wonder just how much had changed since he'd been gone.

"You don't have to worry about that, auntie. I'm back for good." Passing by their neighbors, he tried to get his bearings before arriving home. "Issa, Zengu, Del...are they at home right now?" he asked in regard to his three other siblings.

"No, not currently," Irien replied. "Just you, Shari and Thanil now, plus Tan'jin. Everyone else is currently out."

"Issa might come with Narrus next month, especially now that you're here," Sharimara added in regard to their sister Issinia and her husband.

So many names, most of them of family members who had struck out on their own at least part of the year and stayed at home during the winter due to the warmer weather in the Barrens. It wasn't lost on him that aside from him and Sharimara, the rest of the Hearthglen children had grown up and begun lives of their own. And in Sharimara's case as well as Irien's, she intended to remain at home with their parents until they passed on - neither of them would be alive in half a century, whereas the siblings would all live perhaps half a millennia more; she had no problem devoting a few decades of her life solely to them.

Unlike her, Navarion had little excuse for not having forged a life of his own, and the sight of her only served to increase the strength of the guilt he already bore. Even though this was technically the fourth time he'd returned home, the finality of it felt different in so many ways. Given his centuries long lifespan as a half elf, he shouldn't feel as if he'd wasted his life up to that point; many never began their adult lives until later and Irien herself had no plans on marrying any time soon or on ever leaving the Hearthglen household at all. Things should be fine. The sinking feeling in his chest was already bad enough from the events of the past few months; there was no reason for it to increase upon sight of his didn't make any sense.

When the four of them reached the high walls topped with Kaldorei style arches and the gate rimmed by Darkspear style war shields, they immediately noticed that the father of the siblings had stirred rather early as well and even gone outside. Only slouching over slightly and even wearing a shirt and shoes, Khujand looked every bit the domesticated jungle troll. The estate faced the edge of the bluffs on the other side of the road, and the senior shadow hunter stood and watched the waves crashing on the shore of the public beach below, holding his hands behind his back. As far removed as both of his parents were from their cultural roots, there were a few constants that could never be suppressed: an elf always desired to live in a forest and a troll always desired to live near a flowing water source. Navarion's mother had the tall garden in the backyard of the estate; his father could watch the ocean from the observation deck on the roof of the three story house, though sometimes he preferred to stand out near the edge of the bluff as well. But when the old man turned to get a look at his prodigal son returning, Navarion knew there was another reason that Khujand had been waiting outside.

Understanding the need for them to talk, Sharimara forcibly took his other bag. "Auntie, can you come help me make breakfast for mom? She'll be awake soon and will want to hear the good news," she asked of Irien rhetorically.

Not needing to be told twice, Irien nodded and took Navarion's belt pouches, leaving him totally unencumbered. "Good idea. Venjai, come along inside. Uncle and grandpa are going to talk for a bit."

Quiet and well behaved if demanding, the boy with hair a pale jade color followed the two women inside the gate, leaving the son and father to themselves. His scarlet mane still as fiery as a red dawn, Khujand smiled warmly, showing no resentment or anger over Navarion having left the family again. He merely waited by the edge, still facing the great ocean halfway and looking as if he had not a care in the world.

At the age of sixty three, Khujand had already outlived the average life expectancy for a male troll. True, there were long lived individuals of all races, but the locals tended to believe that it was a combination of voodoo and alchemy that kept the man relatively healthy and able bodied. Both a powerful shadow hunter and the former alchemy trainer of Ratchet, the man certainly did little to dispel those rumors, and as far as even the local shaman and medical practitioners could tell, Navarion's father showed no signs of failing health quite yet. That didn't prevent all the family from constantly worrying and visiting as often as they could; just as Navarion's mother had reached the very end of her life as one of the world's last remaining night elves from before the War of the Ancients, his father had also passed into his twilight years, regardless of how many laps the old jungle troll could run or how well he could still toss his glaive. Seeing his father there, happy and accepting as always, finally did pierce Navarion's wall via a tiny but existent hole, boring inside and reminding him of the fact that he would spent the overwhelmingly majority of his lifespan without his parents alive.

When Khujand held an arm out to draw his son in, Navarion had to look away,more tending to stare off at the underbrush that had sprouted up next to the estate due to the effects of the intense balance of nature focused on the naturally grown household. If the wily old troll noticed, he didn't give it away.

"Welcome home, son," his father drawled in his heavily accented Common, the language of the mixed household. Even after having lost weight in his old age, the senior shadow hunter was more than half a foot taller and quite a bit heavier, and pulled his son in for a hug with a surprising amount of force. "Everybody's glad ta have ya back."

Humbled and undeserving, Navarion weakly forced a smile. "It's good to be back, dad. I never understood the...value of home before." For a split second, he met his father's glowing red eyes, unmindful of the fact that as an even more powerful shadow hunter, the old man could see right through him. Self conscious and cursing his forgetfulness, Navarion quickly tried to change the subject. "How's mom?" he asked nonchalantly.

"She's fine, she's fine...she's gonna be happier now that ya're back." A quick furrowing of the old man's hairless grow signaled that he had easily figured out Navarion's act. According to their mother, Khujand had dealt with social anxiety for years back before they were born; that experience made him loathe to cause any embarrassment or discomfort to others, and he was always very subtle when it came to trying to figure things out. This time, however, his father was a bit more direct. "Son...ya've changed," the full blooded jungle troll noticed, his voice filled with concern.

"It was a long campaign, dad. We beat the silithids."

"Ya know that ain't what I'm talkin' about." Letting out a long sigh through his long nose, Khujand continued to study Navarion in a way that made the young man feel trapped. There was no use in trying to change the subject anymore. "Son...let me tell ya a few things," his father started. At no point in his life had his father ever been the type to lecture them; their twelve thousand year old mother had plenty of wisdom to pass in via lectures. Thus, when his father began to speak, he listened closely. "For a very long time, me and ya mama both struggled with a lot of things we did in our past. Things we ain't proud of. And for a very long time, we both thought tha solution was ta always feel guilty, and always remind ourselves of what bad people we were." For a moment Khujand closed his eyes and breathed in the ocean air, appearing to relive some old memory that Navarion knew he and his siblings would probably never hear about. "But people can't live like that. Ya gotta move on, and ya gotta find a way ta cope with what ya did and make it up ta tha world. Cause mopin' around and hatin' yaself ain't gonna help anybody."

Trapped without a means of escape, Navarion sighed just as heavily as his father and looked out over the ocean as well. "How can I make it up to the people I've hurt?" he asked his father after some hesitation, feeling his throat hitch toward the end.

Undisturbed by the emotional display, Khujand only shrugged. "I can't tell ya that, son. I wish I could, but nobody can. Atonement is somethin' personal, and deep. Ya mama and I are always gonna support ya, but this is one issue where nobody can find out tha answer by yaself."

"I've tried, dad, believe me I've tried...and every time I try to think about it, I come up with nothing," he said in frustration. "Maybe some things are so bad that there is no atonement."

"Hogwash, stop bein' melodramatic. Ya sound like Issa now," his father joked. "Even if ya don't feel like tellin' me what happened-"

"And I don't."

"-I can still tell ya that however bad ya might think it is, it could be much worse. And these answers, no matter how big or small ya sins are, tha answers ta them don't come overnight." Turning away from the ocean, his father looked him right in the face, not sparing him via indirect methods. "Look, ya home now. That's tha most important thing. Whatever ya got goin' on, whatever sort of soul searching' ya need to get done, we're gonna be here for ya. Ya're safe and sound, and at a place where ya can take a break ta think."

Think. To think about thinking terrified him. To even face down how he'd been hurt and then hurt someone else in turn scared his immature brain far too much to bear, and he folded inward. "Thanks dad," was the only response he could muster.

Relaxing a bit despite most assuredly sensing his son's apprehension, the old shadow hunter patted him on the back and turned to walk away. "Everybody is gonna be happy ta see ya, so get ready for tha bombardment. Thanil is pregnant, by tha way - ya gonna be an uncle for tha fourth time."

"So I've heard. Will Zengu and Thandra bring the twins down to visit any time soon?" Navarion asked, thankful to be discussing lighter topics.

"Naw, I don't think so. It's a few months till winter starts, so they're probably gonna wait till then." A short pause fell upon father and son as the two of them stood, waiting for the other to talk first. Not in the mood for saying much, Navarion looked at his father with drooped down ears, silently asking not to bear the responsibility. "Well, why donshyu take a minute ta prepare yaself. Ya know ya mama is gonna practically tie ya down ta a chair for tha first day or so, wantin' ta see ya and be sure ya here for good."

"Yes, I expect I'll be quarantined for a few days while she grills me for a bit," Navarion chuckled, temporarily relieved of his burden. His father promptly walked back through the gate of their property, heading into the house and leaving the oldest son on his own.

Standing alone, Navarion tried to steel his nerve and put on his best face in preparation for pretending everything was alright. He might not be able to fool his father, but he also knew that his father wasn't liable to tell the rest of the family anything unless he felt ready himself. They were all...so kind. Too kind for someone like him. He might call himself a fool for ever having left, but did he truly regret all that had transpired?

The waves of the ocean crashed on the shore, that old familiar sound he'd grown up next to trying its hardest so soothe his soul. Looking out across that ocean, he tried to come to terms with the fact that, at only thirty four years old, he'd already done as much adventuring as his father. Across that ocean lied the Eastern Kingdoms, where he'd cut his teeth when he was barely considered a legal adult and spent years hunting bandits, slavers, pirates and undead, scouring thieves' dens and toppling the towers of Twilight cultists who just never seemed to go away. To the south lied the more arid lands of the continent where he'd first absconded from a work contract as a teenager and gone on a wild ride through the interior, enjoying the best years of his life as he engaged in one escapade after another. By all measures, he should feel ready to settle down.

But something wasn't settled.

To the north, Navarion turned and looked in the direction of Azshara. Nothing but pain, loss and guilt lied there, and he hoped that he'd find a way to leave it all there. But even more, he hoped that a certain woman he'd cared for so much and then lost found her place among the stars with the other heroines, no matter what she believed in, and joined others who had died so the people could live. And, more than anything he'd ever wished for, he truly hoped and prayed that another certain woman, an innocent young woman he'd hurt for no good reason, would find solace in his absence. Perhaps atonement for him would be to never contact her again, just as she'd asked of him. Perhaps the best thing was for him to stay at home, retired when he still had a few hundred years left to live and isolate himself form the world he loved traveling so much. Just seal himself away from any living beings other than his family, and protect anyone else he could potentially hurt.

Every time he inhaled, he felt physical pain pounding in his chest. Within the dried out and frozen husk that used to be his heart lied numerous holes, all of them poked by his own stupid actions in one way or another. One gaping emptiness had been torn by the loss of his paladin, her darkly beautiful visage already fading in his mind but leaving a hole all the same. Another gaping emptiness had been torn by his mistreatment of his archer, her adorably cute features intentionally forgotten for fear that his ache might drive him to behave rashly once more.

And...a third.

It didn't make any sense. Only Zhenya and Astariel were in his mind, yet there was a third hole in what was left of his heart. Something else. Or someone else. As if there was another person he'd left behind.

Shaking the thoughts out of his head, Navarion held his breath as he'd done once before, letting the pain of repressing his emotions tax his cardiovascular health until it went numb. At least he could pretend he felt like a normal person for a while, and bask in the undeserved welcome his family would grant him.

Maybe, just maybe, he'd find a means one day to atone for what he'd done to a good woman. Make it up to her somehow, perhaps even find a way to rid himself of the self loathing he'd been told had once affected his parents but that he'd assumed would never affect him.

And maybe...just maybe...he'd find a way to help set the world right again.

But all of that was in the future. Depressed, defeated and done, Navarion turned and walked toward the family's estate, as ready to face them as he would ever be. Once the likely day long welcome had completed, there was nothing more he wanted than to shower and sleep. And maybe if he closed his eyes long enough, he wouldn't wake up until he somehow felt whole again.

A/N: **so ends the second volume of Taming the Beast. Is it a happy ending? Not really. Should I have warned readers? I don't think so; there should be a measure of uncertainty when taking up new literature. This story was rather painful for me to write, partially because it's based on real life events as I've told some readers in private, and I hope it wasn't too painful to read.**

 **As mentioned before, all three volumes of this series were completed about a year before the first chapter of the first volume had even been posted. Volume three takes place eight years after this chapter. Things change. People change. And when older, different versions of a certain shadow hunter and archer try to make amends, and try to pick up the pieces of lives that were once whole and now shattered, the results may not be ideal.**

 **Will the ending of the final volume be a bad ending? No, I promise. Will it be a stereotypical good ending? No, not that either. Sometimes the best endings are the most realistically mature ones reachable. That's all I can say for now.**

For **those who plan to read on, the third volume will be posted soon enough; it was already edited long ago and is ready to be posted after a short interlude. For those who only planned on reading this story, thank you so, so much for your patience during an attempt to write a less ideal story. Whatever emotions this stirred up, I do hope it's moved you in some way or another. Best wishes.**


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